)rma 
al 


3  1822019648443 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


TP-lF 


3  1822019648443 


X 


*7 


Social  Sciences  &  Humanities  Library 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 
Please  Note:  This  item  is  subject  to  recall. 

Date  Due 


JUN  2  7  1QQR 


— 


IS. 


TAINE'S  WORKS. 


UNIFORM  LIBRARY  EDITION.     I2MO,  GREEN  CLOTH, 
$2.50  PER  VOLUME. 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE,    2  vols. 

ITALY,  ROME,  AND  NAPLES, 

ITALY,  FLORENCE,  AND  VENICE. 

ON  INTELLIGENCE.    2  vols. 

LECTURES  ON  ART.  First  Series.  Containing  The  Phi- 
losophy of  Art ;  The  Ideal  in  Art. 

LECTURES  ON  ART.  Second  Series.  Containing  The  Phi- 
losophy  of  Art  in  Italy  ;  The  Philosophy  of  Art  in  the 
Netherlands  ;  The  Philosophy  of  Art  in  Greece. 

NOTES  ON  ENGLAND.    With  Portrait. 

NOTES  ON  PARIS. 

A  TOUR  THROUGH  THE  PYRENEES. 

(THE  SAME.     Illustrated  by  Gustave  Dore*.     8vo, 
cloth,  $10.00  ;  full  morocco,  $20.00.) 

THE  ANCIENT  REGIME. 

THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.    3  vols. 

THE  MODERN  REGIME.    Vol.  I. 

THE  MODERN  REGIME.    Vol.  II. 

JOURNEYS  THROUGH  FRANCE. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     With  28  portraits.     4  vols.  in 

box.      Cheaper  Edition.     8vo.     $6.00. 
ENGLISH  LITERATURE.    Condensed  by  John  Fiske.     One 

vol.     8vo,  $1.40  net. 


HENRY  HOLT  &  CO.,   PUBLISHERS, 

NEW    YORK. 


LECTURES  ON  ART 


•ff 
H.    TAINE 

OF  JBSTHBTICS  AND  OF  THK  HISTORY  OF   A«T 
BCOLK   DBS   PKAUX-AKTS,    PARIS 


TRANSLATED  BY 

JOHN    DURAND 


FIRST  SERIES 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 
THE  IDEAL  IN  ART 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOJT  AND  COMPANY 


CDPYUGHT,  1875,  BY 

HENRY  HOLT. 


THE 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION. 

THE  growing  appreciation  of  M.  TAINE'S  writ- 
ings gives  the  publishers  the  pleasure  of  issuing 
those  now  translated  in  a  uniform  edition. 

The  lectures  on  art  hitherto  published  sepa- 
rately in  America  consist  of  The  Philosophy  of 
Art,  The  Ideal  in  Art,  Art  in  the  Netherlands, 
and  Art  in  Greece.  The  first  two  are  now  in- 
cluded in  this  volume,  the  last  two  together  with 
the  lecture  on  Art  in  Italy  (not  before  published 
in  America)  are  gathered  into  a  volume  uniform 
with  this,  as  a  second  series.  The  two  present 
volumes  include  all  that  M.  TAINB  has  written  OE 
distinctively  Art  topics. 

September,  1876. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION. 


THE  translation  herewith  presented  to  the 
reader  consists  of  a  course  of  Lectures  delivered 
during  the  winter  of  1864,  before  the  students  of 
Art  of  the  Ecole  dea  Beaux  Arts  at  Paris,  by  H. 
TAINE,  Professeur  d"  Esthetique  et  cT  JERstoire  de 
VArt  in  that  institution. 

These  lectures,  as  a  system  of  ^Esthetics,  con- 
sist of  an  application  of  the  experimental  method 
to  art,  in  the  same  manner  as  it  is  applied  to  the 
sciences.  Whatever  utility  the  system  possesses 
is  due  to  this  principle.  The  author  undertakes 
to  explain  art  by  social  influences  and  othet 
causes;  humanity  at  different  times  and  places, 
climate,  and  other  conditions,  furnish  the  facts  on 
which  the  theory  rests.  The  artistic  development 
of  any  age  or  people  is  made  intelligible  through 
a  series  of  historical  inductions  terminating  in  a 
few  inferential  laws,  constituting  what  the  title  of 
the  book  declares  it  to  be — ike  philosophy  of  art 


12  PREFACE. 

Such  a  system  seems  to  possess  many  advan- 
tages. Among  others,  it  tends  to  emancipate  the 
student  of  art,  as  well  as  the  amateur,  from  met- 
aphysical and  visionary  theories  growing  out  of 
false  theories  and  traditional  misconceptions ;  he 
is  not  misled  by  an  exclusive  adherence  to  partic- 
ular schools,  masters,  or  epochs.  It  also  tends  to 
render  criticism  less  capricious,  and  therefore 
less  injurious ;  dictating  no  conventional  standard 
of  judgment,  it  promotes  a  spirit  of  charity  to- 
wards all  works.  As  there  is  no  attempt  to  do 
more  than  explain  art  according  to  natural  laws, 
the  reader  must  judge  whether,  like  all  systems 
assuming  to  bring  order  out  of  confusion,  this  one 
fulfills  its  mission. 

Readers  familiar  with  M.  TAINE'S  able  and  orig- 
inal work  on  English  literature  (Histoire  de  la  Lit- 
terature  Anglaise)  will  recognize  in  the  following 
pages  the  same  theory  applied  to  arts  as  is  therein 
applied  to  literature. 

J.  D. 

LONDON,  November  9, 1865. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


SINCE  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of  the 
"Philosophy  of  Art"  seven  years  ago,  in  London, 
its  author  has  become  deservedly  popular,  and 
especially  in  this  country.  His  writings  are 
sought  for,  read  and  translated  both  in  England 
and  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  it  would  be 
but  refining  gold  to  say  aught  in  his  praise.  Like 
every  man  of  genius  he  has,  as  time  moves  on, 
improved  in  his  order  of  thought  and  in  his  won- 
derfully artistic  style.  His  latest  work,  "  On  In- 
telligence" ranks  him  as  high  among  thinkers,  as 
his  former  works  among  men  of  letters. 

The  present  edition  is  a  careful  revision  of  the 
former  one,  and  amounts,  indeed,  to  a  new  trans- 
lation. Were  either  to  be  compared  with  the 
original,  no  change  of  sense  could  probably  be 
detected.  The  present  edition,  however,  being 


14  PREFACE. 

much  more  literal,  the  translator  considers  it  an 
improvement,  and  hopes  that  it  will  be  found 
more  worthy  of  its  gifted  author,  the  publishers, 
his  indulgent  critics,  and  the  public  generally. 

J.D. 

SOUTH  ORANGE,  N.  J., 
January,  1873. 


SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS. 

PART  L 
ON  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART 


II. 

MOB 

Object  of  this  study  —  The  method  employed  —  The  search 
for  aggregates  on  which  the  work  of  art  depends. 

First  aggregate,  the  entire  production  of  the  artist  — 
Second  aggregate,  the  school  to  which  he  belongs;  ex- 
amples, Shakespeare,  Rubens.  Third  aggregate,  contem- 
porary society;  examples,  Greece,  Spain,  in  the  sixteenth 
century. 

Conditions  determining  appearance  and  character  of  work* 
of  art;  examples,  Greek  tragedy,  Gothic  architecture,  Dutch 
painting,  French  tragedy  —  Comparison  of  climate  and  natural 
productions  with  a  moral  temperature,  and  its  effect  —  Appli- 
cation of  this  method  to  Italian  art. 

Objects  and  method  of  aesthetics  —  Opposition  of  the  his- 
toric and  dogmatic  methods  —  Laws  —  Sympathy  for  all 
schools  —  The  analogy  between  aesthetics  and  botany,  and 
between  the  natural  and  the  moral  sciences  .  .  tj 


What  is  the  object  of  art  —  The  research   experimental 


16  SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAG* 


uul  not  ideal  —  Comparisons  and  eliminations  of  works  of 
art  sufficient. 

Division  of  the  arts  into  two  groups — On  the  one  hand, 
painting,  sculpture  and  poesy;  and,  on  the  other,  archi- 
tecture and  music.  First  group — Imitation  apparently  the 
end  of  art — Reason  for  this  derived  from  ordinary  experi- 
ence, and  from  the  lives  of  great  men;  Michael  Angelo, 
Corneille  —  Reasons  derived  from  the  history  of  art  and 
literature ;  Pompeii  and  Ravenna — Classic  style  under  Louis 
XIV.,  and  academic  style  under  Louis  XV.  40 

§  III. 

Exact  imitation  not  the  end  of  art — Illustrations  derived 
from  casting,  photography,  and  stenography — Comparison 
between  Denner  and  Van  Dyck — Certain  arts  purposely  in- 
exact—  Comparison  between  antique  statues  and  draped 
figures  in  the  churches  of  Naples  and  Spain — Comparison 
between  prose  and  verse — The  two  Iphigenias  of  Goethe  .  51 

§  iv. 

Relationships  of  parts  the  true  object  of  imitation — Illus- 
trations derived  from  drawing  and  literature  .  -  56 

§  v. 

A  work  of  art  not  confined  to  imitating  relationships  of 
parts — Modification  of  the  principle  in  the  greatest  schools ; 
Michael  Angelo,  Rubens — The  Medici  Tomb— The  "Kerm- 
esse." 

Definition  of  essential  character:  examples  of  the  lion 
and  the  Netherlands. 

Importance  of  essential  character ;  nature  imperfectly  ex- 
pressing  it,  art  supplies  her  place  —  Flanders  in  the  time 
of  Rubens,  and  Italy  in  the  time  of  Raphael. 

Artistic  imagination — Spontaneous  impressions,  and  thdr 
power  of  transformation. 


STNOP8I3  OF  CONTENTS.  If 

MOB. 

Retrospect ;  successive  steps  of  the  method,  and  defini- 
tion of  a  work  of  art  .  .  .  .  -60 

§  VI. 

Two  parts  in  this  definition  —  How  music  and  architect- 
ore  enter  into  it— Opposition  of  the  first  and  second  group 
of  arts — The  first  copies  organic  and  moral  dependencies ; 
the  second  combines  mathematical  dependencies. 

Mathematical  relationships  perceived  by  the  sense  of  sight 
— Different  classes  of  these  relationships  —  Principle  of 
architecture. 

Mathematical  relationships  perceived  by  the  sense  of 
hearing — Different  classes  of  these  relationships — Principle 
of  music — The  second  principle  of  music,  analogy  of  the 
sound  and  the  cry — Music,  on  this  side,  enters  into  the  first 
group  of  arts. 

The  definition  given  is  applicable  to  all  the  arts    .  .    77 

§  VII. 

The  value  of  art  in  human  life  —  Selfish  acts  for  the 
preservation  of  the  individual  —  Social  acts  tending  to  pre- 
serve the  species — Disinterested  acts  having  for  object  the 
contemplation  of  causes  and  essentials — Two  ways  for  attain- 
ing this  end:  Science  and  art — Advantages  of  art  .  .  8* 


PART  IL 

ON  THE  PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK 
OF  ART. 

§  I- 

Genend  law  foi   the  production  of  the  work  of 


18  SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS. 


PACHI 


First  formula — Two  sorts  of  proof,  one  of  experience,  and 
the  other  of  reasoning         .  ...    8} 

§  II. 

General  exposition  of  the  action  of  social  mediums — The 
development  of  the  plant  compared  with  the  development 
of  human  activity — Natural  selection  .  .89 

§   III. 

The  action  of  a  moral  temperature  —  The  influence  of 
melancholy  and  cheerful  states  of  mind — The  artist  is  sad- 
dened by  his  personal  share  of  misfortune — By  the  melan- 
choly ideas  of  his  contemporaries  —  By  his  aptitude  for 
defining  the  salient  character  of  objects,  which  here  is  sad- 
ness— He  finds  suggestions  and  enlightenment  only  in  mel- 
ancholy subjects — The  public  comprehends  only  melancholy 
subjects. 

An  inverse  case,  state  of  prosperity  and  general  joy — In- 
termediate cases  .  .  ...  95 

§  IV. 

Real  and  historical  cases — Four  epochs,  and  four  leading 
arts  .  105 

§  V. 

Greek  civilization  and  antique  sculpture — Comparison  of 
Greek  manners  with  those  of  contemporaries — The  city — 
The  citizen — Taste  for  war — The  athlete — Spartan  educa- 
tion— The  gymnasium  in  other  parts  of  Greece. 

Conformity  of  customs  with  ideas  —  Nudity — Olympic 
games — The  gods  perfect  human  figures. 

Birth  of  sculpture;  statues  of  athletes  and  of  gods  — 
\Vhy  statuary  sufficed  for  the  artist's  conceptions — Immense 
number  of  statues  IO6 


SYNOPSIS  OF  OONTENTB.  jg 

5  VI 

•Mft 

The  civilization  of  the  middle  ages,  and  Gothic  architect- 
are. 

Decline  of  antique  society  —  Invasions  of  barbarians— 
Feudal  excesses  —  Universal  misery. 

Distaste  for  life  —  Exalted  sensibility  —  The  passion  of  lore 
—Power  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Birth  of  Gothic  architecture  —  The  cathedral  —  Universality 
of  Gothic  architecture  .  .  .  .  .122 

§  VIL 

French  civilization  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  classic 
tragedy. 

The  courtier  —  Ruling  taste  —  Tragedy  —  The  aristocratic 
sentiments  of  society  —  Importation  of  French  tragedy  into 
other  European  countries  .  .  .  .  .  135 

§  VIII. 

Contemporary  civilization  and  music  —  The  French  Rev- 
olution —  Effect  of  civil  equality,  machinery,  and  the  com- 
forts of  existence  —  Decay  of  traditional  authority. 

The  representative  man  —  Development  of  music  —  Its 
origin  in  Germany  and  Italy;  and  its  dependence  on  mod- 
ern sentiments. 

Universality  of  music      .....  147 

$  IX. 

The  law  of  the  production  of  works  of  art  —  The  fbtn 
terms  of  the  series  —  Practical  application  of  the  law  to  a 
study  of  all  the  arts  and  of  every  literature  .  .  157 


Application  of  the  law  to  the  present—  The  social  medium 
renewing  itself  constantly,  art  renews  itself—  Hopes  for 
the  future  .  .161 


ON 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART 

GENTLEMEN  : 

In  commencing  this  course  of  lectures  I  wish 
to  ask  you  two  things  of  which  I  stand  in  great 
need:  in  the  first  place,  your  attention;  after- 
wards, and  especially,  your  kind  indulgence. 
The  warmth  of  your  reception  persuades  me  that 
you  will  favor  me  with  both.  Let  me  sincerely 
and  earnestly  thank  you  beforehand.  The  sub- 
ject with  which  I  intend  to  entertain  you  this 
year  is  the  history  of  art,  and,  principally,  the 
history  of  painting  in  Italy.  Before  entering  on 
the  subject  itself,  I  desire  to  indicate  to  you  ita 
spirit  and  method. 


1 

The  principal  point  of  this  method  consists  IE 
recognizing  that  a  work  of  art  is  not  isolated, 
and,  consequently,  that  it  is  necessary  to  study 
the  conditions  out  of  which  it  proceeds  and  by 
which  it  is  explained. 

The  first  step  is  not  difficult.  At  first,  and 
evidently,  a  work  of  art — a  picture,  a  tragedy,  a 
statue — belongs  to  a  certain  whole,  that  is  to  say, 
to  the  entire  work  of  the  artist  producing  it. 
This  is  elementary.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
different  works  of  an  artist  bear  a  family  likeness, 
like  the  children  of  one  parent;  that  is  to  say, 
they  bear  a  certain  resemblance  to  each  other. 
We  know  that  every  artist  has  his  own  style,  a 
style  recognized  in  all  his  productions.  If  he  is 
a  painter,  he  has  his  own  coloring,  rich  or  im- 
poverished ;  his  favorite  types,  noble  or  ignoble ; 
his  attitudes,  his  mode  of  composition,  even  his 


24:  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

processes  of  execution;  his  favorite  pigments, 
tints,  models,  and  manner  of  working.  If  he  is 
a  writer,  he  has  his  own  characters,  calm  or 
passionate ;  his  own  plots,  simple  or  complex ; 
his  own  denouments,  comic  or  tragic,  his  pecul- 
iarities of  style,  his  pet  periods,  and  even  his 
special  vocabulary.  This  is  so  true,  that  a  con- 
noisseur, if  you  place  him  before  a  work  not 
signed  by  any  prominent  master,  is  able  to  recog- 
nize, to  almost  a  certainty,  to  what  artist  this 
work  belongs,  and,  if  sufficiently  experienced  and 
delicate  in  his  perceptions,  the  period  of  the  art- 
ist's life,  and  the  particular  stage  of  his  develop- 
ment. 

This  is  the  first  whole  to  which  we  must  refer 
a  work  of  art.  And  here  is  the  second.  The 
artist  himself,  considered  in  connection  with  his 
productions,  is  not  isolated ;  he  also  belongs  to  a 
whole,  one  greater  than  himself,  comprising  the 
school  or  family  of  artists  of  the  time  and  country 
to  which  he  belongs.  For  example,  around 
Shakespeare,  who,  at  the  first  glance,  seems  to  be 
a  marvelous  celestial  gift  coming  like  an  aerolite 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  25 

from  heaven,  we  find  several  dramatists  of  a  nigh 
order- -Webster,  Ford,  Massinger,  Marlowe,  Ben 
Jonson,  Beaumout  and  Fletcher — all  of  whom 
wrote  in  the  same  style  and  in  the  same  spirit  as 
he  did.  There  are  the  same  characters  in  their 
dramas  as  in  Shakespeare's,  the  same  violent  and 
terrible  characters,  the  same  murderous  and  un 
foreseen  occurrences,  the  same  sudden  and  fren- 
zied passions,  the  same  irregular,  capricious, 
turgid,  magnificent  style,  the  same  exquisite  po- 
etic feeling  for  rural  life  and  landscape,  and  the 
same  delicate,  tender,  affectionate  ideals  of  wo- 
man. 

In  a  similar  way  Rubens  is  to  be  judged.  Ru- 
bens apparently  stands  alone,  without  either  pred- 
ecessor or  successor.  On  going  to  Belgium, 
however,  and  visiting  the  churches  of  Ghent, 
Brussels,  Bruges,  or  Antwerp,  you  find  a  group 
of  painters  with  genius  resembling  his.  First, 
there  is  Grayer,  in  his  day  considered  a  rival ; 
Seghers,  Van  Oost,  Everdingen,  Van  Thulden, 
Quellin,  Hondthorst,  and  others,  with  whom  you 
are  familiar,  Jordaens,  Van  Dyck — all  conceiving 
3 


20  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

painting  in  the  same  spirit,  and  with  many  dis- 
tinctive features,  all  preserving  a  family  likeness. 
Like  Eubens,  these  artists  delighted  in  painting 
ruddy  and  healthy  flesh,  the  rich  and  quivering 
palpitation  of  life,  the  fresh  and  sensuous  pulp 
which  is  diffused  so  richly  over  the  surface  of  the 
living  being,  the  real,  and  often  brutal  types,  the 
transport  and  abandonment  of  unfettered  action, 
the  splendid  lustrous  and  embroidered  draperies, 
the  varying  hues  of  silk  and  purple,  and  the  dis- 
play of  shifting  and  waving  folds.  At  the  present 
day  they  seem  to  be  obscured  by  the  glory  of  their 
great  contemporary;  but  it  is  not  the  less  true 
that  to  comprehend  him  it  is  necessary  to  study 
him  amidst  this  cluster  of  brilliants  of  which  he 
is  the  brightest  gem — this  family  of  artists,  of 
which  he  is  the  most  illustrious  representative. 

This  being  the  second  step,  there  now  remains 
the  third.  This  family  of  artists  is  itself  compre- 
hended in  another  whole  more  vast,  which  is  the 
world  surrounding  it,  and  whose  taste  is  similar. 
.The  social  and  intellectual  condition  is  the  same 
for  the  public  as  for  artists;  they  are  not  isolated 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  2? 

men ;  it  is  their  voice  alone  that  we  hear  at  this 
moment,  through  the  space  of  centuries,  but,  be- 
neath this  living  voice  which  comes  vibrating  to 
us,  we  distinguish  a  murmur,  and,  as  it  were,  a 
vast,  low  sound,  the  great  infinite  and  varied 
voice  of  the  people,  chanting  in  unison  with  them. 
They  have  been  great  through  this  harmony,  and 
it  is  very  necessary  that  it  should  ever  be  so. 
Phidias  and  Ictinus,  the  constructors  of  the 
Parthenon  and  of  the  Olympian  Jupiter,  were, 
like  other  Athenians,  pagans  and  free  citizens, 
brought  up  in  the  palaestra,  exercising  and  wrest- 
ling naked,  and  accustomed  to  deliberate  and  vote 
in  the  public  assemblies ;  possessing  the  same 
habits,  the  same  interests,  the  same  ideas,  the 
same  faith;  men  of  the  same  race,  the  same  edu- 
cation, the  same  language ;  so  that  in  all  the  im- 
portant acts  of  their  life  they  are  found  in  har- 
mony with  their  spectators. 

This  harmony  becomes  still  more  apparent  if 
we  consider  an  age  nearer  our  own.  For  exam- 
ple, take  the  great  Spanish  epoch  of  the  sixteenth 
and  a  part  of  the  seventeenth  centuries,  in  which 


2g  TEL  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

lived  the  great  painters,  Velasquez,  Murillo,  Zui 
baran,  Francisco  de  Herrera,  Alonzo  Cano,  and 
Morales;  and  the  great  poets,  Lope  de  Yega, 
Calderon,  Cervantes,  Tirso  de  Molina,  Don  Luis 
de  Leon,  Guilhem  de  Castro,  and  so  many  others. 
You  know  that  at  this  time  Spain  was  entirely 
monarchical  and  Catholic ;  that  she  had  overcome 
the  Turks  at  Lepanto ;  that  she  planted  her  foot 
in  Africa  and  maintained  herself  there ;  that  she 
combated  the  Protestants  in  Germany,  pursued 
them  in  France  and  attacked  them  in  England ; 
that  she  subdued  and  converted  the  idolaters  of 
the  new  world,  and  chased  away  Jews  and  Moors 
from  her  own  soil ;  that  she  purged  her  own  faith 
with  auto-da-fes  and  persecutions ;  that  she  lav- 
ished fleets  and  armies,  and  the  gold  and  silver 
of  her  American  possessions,  along  with  her 
most  precious  children,  the  vital  blood  of  her 
own  heart,  upon  multiplied  and  boundless  cru- 
sades, so  obstinately  and  so  fanatically,  that  at 
the  end  of  a  century  and  a  half  she  fell  pros- 
trate at  the  feet  of  Europe,  but  with  such  enthu 
siasin,  such  a  burst  of  glory,  such  national  fervort 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  AR'L  29 

that  her  subjects,  enamored  of  the  monarch}  in 
which  their  power  was  concentrated,  and  with  the 
cause  to  which  they  devoted  their  lives,  felt  no 
other  desire  than  that  of  elevating  religion  and 
royalty  by  their  obedience,  and  of  forming  around 
the  Church  and  the  Throne  a  choir  of  faithful, 
militant,  and  adoring  supporters.  In  this  mon- 
archy of  crusaders  and  inquisitors,  preserving  the 
chivalric  sentiments  and  sombre  passions,  the 
ferocity,  intolerance,  and  mysticism  of  the  middle 
ages,  the  greatest  artists  are  the  very  men  who 
possessed  in  the  highest  degree  the  faculties,  sen- 
timents, and  passions  of  the  public  that  sur- 
rounded them.  The  most  celebrated  poets — 
Lope  de  Vega  and  Calderon — were  military  ad- 
venturers, volunteers  in  the  Armada,  duelists  and 
lovers,  as  exalted  and  as  mystic  in  love  as  the 
poets  and  Don  Quixotes  of  feudal  times;  they 
were  passionate  Catholics  and  so  ardent  that,  at 
the  end  of  their  lives,  one  became  a  familiar  of 
the  Inquisition,  others  became  priests,  and  the 
most  illustrious  among  them — the  great  Lope  de 
Vega— fainted  on  saying  Mass,  at  the  thought  of 


30 

the  sacrifice  and  martyrdom  of  Jesus.  Every- 
where may  be  found  similar  examples  of  the  alii* 
ance,  the  intimate  harmony  existing  between  an 
artist  and  his  contemporaries;  and  we  may  rest 
assured  that  if  we  desire  to  comprehend  the  taste 
or  the  genius  of  an  artist,  the  reasons  leading 
bJTii  to  choose  a  particular  style  of  painting  01 
drama,  to  prefer  this  or  that  character  or  color- 
ing, and  to  represent  particular  sentiments,  we 
must  seek  for  them  in  the  social  and  intellectual 
conditions  of  the  community  in  the  midst.o|,.wlyic^_ 
he  lived. 

We  have  therefore  to  lay  down  this  rule :  that, 
in  order  to  comprehend  a  work  of  art,  an  artist  or 
a  group  of  artists,  we  must  clearly  comprehend 
the  general  social  and  intellectual  condition  of 
the  times  to  which  they  belong.  Herein  is  to  be 
found  the  final  explanation;  herein  resides  the 
primitive  cause  determining  all  that  follows  it. 
This  truth,  gentlemen,  is  confirmed  by  experience. 
In  short,  if  we  pass  in  review  the  principal  epochs 
of  the  history  of  art,  we  find  that  the  arts  appear 
and  disappear  along  with  certain  accompanying 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OP  ART.  3] 

social  and  intellectual  conditions.  For  example, 
the  Greek  tragedy — that  of  ./Eschylus,  Sophocles, 
and  Euripides — appears  at  the  time  when  the 
the  Greeks  were  victorious  over  the  Persians ;  at 
the  heroic  era  of  small  republican  cities,  at  the 
moment  of  the  great  struggle  by  which  they  ac- 
quired their  independence  and  established  their 
ascendency  in  the  civilized  world ;  and  we  see  it 
disappearing  along  with  this  independence  and 
this  vigor  when  a  degeneracy  of  character  and  the 
Macedonian  conquest  delivered  Greece  over  to 
strangers.  It  is  the  same  with  Gothic  architec- 
ture, developing  along  with  the  definitive  estab- 
lishment of  feudalism  in  the  semi-renaissance  of 
the  eleventh  century  at  the  period  when  society, 
delivered  from  brigands  and  Normans,  began  to 
consolidate,  and  disappearing  at  the  period  when 
the  military  system  of  petty  independent  barons, 
with  the  manners  and  customs  growing  out  of  it 
vanished  near  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  on 
the  advent  of  modern  monarchies.  It  is  the  same 
with  Dutch  painting,  which  flourished  at  the  glo- 
rious period  when,  through  firmness  and  courage, 


32  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

Holland  succeeded  in  freeing  herself  from  Span 
ish  rule,  combated  England  with  equal  power,  and 
became  the  richest,  freest,  most  industrious,  and 
most  prosperous  state  in  Europe  :  and  we  see  it 
declining  at  the  commencement  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  Holland,  fallen  into  a  secondary 
rank,  leaves  the  first  to  England,  reducing  itself 
to  a  well-ordered,  safely-administered,  quiet,  com- 
mercial banking-house,  in  which  man,  an  honest 
bourgeois,  could  live  at  ease,  exempt  from  every 
great  ambition  and  every  grand  emotion.  It  is 
the  same,  finally,  with  French  tragedy  appearing 
at  the  period  when  a  noble  and  well-regulated 
monarchy,  under  Louis  XIV.,  established  the  em- 
pire of  decorum,  the  life  of  the  court,  "the  pomp 
and  circumstance"  of  society,  and  the  elegant  do- 
mestic phrases  of  aristocracy ;  disappearing  when 
the  social  rule  of  nobles  and  the  manners  of  the 
ante-chamber  were  abolished  by  the  Revolution. 
I  would  like  to  make  you  more  sensible  by  a 
comparison  of  this  effect  of  the  social  and  intfl- 
lectual  state  on  the  Fine  Arts.  Suppose  you  are 
leaving  the  land  of  the  south  for  that  of  the  north 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  33 

yon  perceive  on  entering  a  certain  zone  a  partic- 
ular mode  of  cultivation  and  a  particular  species 
of  plant :  first  come  the  aloe  and  the  orange ;  a 
little  later,  the  viiio  and  the  olive ;  after  these,  the 
oak  and  the  chestnut ;  a  little  further  on,  oats  and 
the  pine,  and  finally,  mosses  and  lichens.  Each 
zone  has  its  own  mode  of  cultivation  and  peculiar 
vegetation ;  both  begin  at  the  commencement,  and 
both  finish  at  the  end  of  the  zone ;  both  are  at- 
tached to  it.  The  zone  is  the  condition  of  their 
existence ;  by  its  presence  or  its  absence  is  deter- 
mined what  shall  appear  and  what  shall  disap- 
pear. Now,  what  is  this  zone  but  a  certain  tem- 
perature ;  in  other  words,  a  certain  degree  of 
heat  and  moisture ;  in  short,  a  certain  number  of 
governing  circumstances  analogous  in  its  germ  to 
that  which  we  called  a  moment  ago  the  social  and 
intellectual  state  ? 

Just  as  there  is  a  physical  temperature,  which 
by  its  variations  determines  the  appearance  of 
this  or  that  species  of  plant,  so  is  there  a  moral 
temperature,  which  by  its  variations  determines 
the  appearance  of  this  or  that  species  of  art.    And 


34  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

as  we  study  the  physical  temperature  in  order  tc 
comprehend  the  advent  of  this  or  that  species  of 
plants,  whether  maize  or  oats,  the  orange  or  the 
pine,  so  is  it  necessary  to  study  the  moral  temper- 
ature in  order  to  comprehend  the  advent  of  vari- 
ous phases  of  art,  whether  pagan  sculpture  or 
realistic  painting,  mystic  architecture  or  classic 
literature,  voluptuous  music  or  ideal  poetry.  The 
productions  of  the  human  mind,  like  those  of  ani- 
mated nature,  can  only  be  explained  by  their 
milieu. 

Hence  the  study  1  intend  to  offer  to  you  this 
season,  of  the  history  of  painting  in  Italy.  I  shall 
attempt  to  lay  before  your  eyes  the  mystic  milieu, 
in  which  appeared  Giotto  and  Beato  Angelico, 
and  to  this  end  I  shall  read  passages  from  the 
poets  and  legendary  writers,  containing  the  ideas 
entertained  by  the  men  of  those  days  concerning 
happiness,  misery,  love,  faith,  paradise,  hell,  and 
all  the  great  interests  of  humanity.  We  shall 
find  documentary  evidence  in  the  poetry  of  Dante 
of  Guido  Cavalcanti,  of  the  Franciscans,  in  the 
Golden  Legend,  in  the  Imitation  of  Jesus  Christ 


NATURE  OP  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  35 

in  the  Fioretti  of  St.  Francis,  in  the  works  of  his- 
torians like  Diiio  Oampagni,  and  in  that  vast  col- 
lection of  chroniclers  by  Muratori,  which  so 
naively  portray  the  jealousies  and  disturbances 
of  the  small  Italian  republics.  After  this  I  shall 
attempt  to  place  before  you  in  the  same  manner 
the  pagan  milieu  which  a  century  and  a  half  later 
produced  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Michael  Angelo, 
Raphael  and  Titian,  and  to  this  end  I  shall  read, 
either  from  the  memoirs  of  contemporaries — Ben- 
venuto  Cellini  for  instance — or  from  the  diverse 
chronicles  kept  daily  in  Home  and  in  the  princi- 
pal Italian  cities,  or  from  the  dispatches  of  ambas- 
sadors, or,  finally,  from  the  descriptions  of  fetes, 
masquerades,  and  civic  receptions,  which  are  re- 
markable fragments,  displaying  the  brutality,  sen- 
suality, and  vigor  of  society,  as  well  as  the  lively 
poetic  sentiment,  the  love  of  the  picturesque,  the 
great  literary  sentiment,  the  decorative  instincts, 
and  the  passion  for  external  splendor  which  at 
that  time  are  seen  as  well  among  the  people  and 
the  ignorant  crDwd  as  among  the  great  and  the 
lettered. 


56  THE  PHIL 0 SOPHY  OF  AM T. 

Suppose  now,  gentlemen,  we  should  succeed  in 
this  undertaking,  and  that  we  should  be  able  to 
mark  clearly  and  precisely  the  various  intellectual 
conditions  which  have  led  to  the  birth  of  Italian 
painting — its  development,  its  bloom,  its  varie- 
ties and  decline.  Suppose  the  same  undertaking 
successful  with  other  countries,  and  other  ages, 
and  with  the  different  branches  of  art,  architec- 
ture, sculpture,  painting,  poetry,  and  music.  Sup- 
pose, that  through  the  effect  of  all  these  discover- 
ies, we  succeed  in  defining  the  nature,  and  in 
marking  the  conditions  of  existence  of  each  art, 
we  shall  then  have  a  complete  explanation  of  the 
Fine  Arts,  and  of  art  in  general ;  that  is  to  say,  a 
philosophy  of  the  Fine  Arts — what  is  called  an 
(Esthetic  system.  This  is  what  we  aim  at,  gentle- 
men, and  nothing  else.  Ours  is  modern,  and  dif- 
fers from  the  ancient,  inasmuch  as  it  is  historic, 
and  not  dogmatic ;  that  is  to  say,  it  imposes  no 
precepts,  but  ascertains  and  verifies  laws.  An- 
cient aesthetics  gave,  at  first,  a  definition  of 
beauty,  and  declared,  for  instance,  thai  the  beau- 
tiful is  the  expression  of  the  moral  ideal,  01 


DtATUliK  OF  THE  WORK  OF  AMT.  JJ? 

rather  is  the  expression  of  the  in-visible,  or 
rather  still,  is  the  expression  of  the  human  pas 
sions ;  then  starting  hence,  as  from  an  article  of 
a  code,  they  absolved,  condemned,  admonished, 
and  directed.  It  is  my  good  fortune  not  to  have 
such  a  formidable  task  to  meet.  I  do  not  wish 
to  guide  you — it  would  embarrass  me  too  much. 
Besides,  I  say  with  all  humility,  that,  as  to  pre- 
cepts, we  have  as  yet  found  but  two  :  the  first  is 
to  be  born  a  genius,  an  affair  of  your  parents, 
and  not  mine;  and  the  second,  which  implies 
much  labor  in  order  to  master  art,  which  like- 
wise does  not  depend  on  me,  but  on  yourselves. 
My  sole  duty  is  to  offer  you  facts,  and  show  yon 
how  these  facts  are  produced.  The  modern 
method,  which  I  strive  to  pursue,  and  which  is 
beginning  to  be  introduced  in  all  the  moral  sci- 
ences, consists  in  considering  human  productions, 
and  particularly  works  of  art,  as  facts  and  pro- 
ductions of  which  it  is  essential  to  mark  the 
characteristics  and  seek  the  causes,  and  nothing 
more.  Thus  understood,  science  neither  pardons 
nor  proscribes ;  it  verifies  and  explains.  It  doep 
4 


38  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

not  say  to  you,  despise  Dutch  art  because  it 
is  vulgar,  and  prize  only  Italian  art ;  nor  does  it 
say  to  you  despise  Gothic  art  because  it  is  mor- 
bid, and  prize  only  Greek  art.  It  leaves  every 
one  free  to  follow  their  own  predilections,  to 
prefer  that  which  is  germane  to  one's  temper- 
ament, and  to  study  with  the  greatest  care  that 
which  best  corresponds  to  the  development  of 
one's  own  mind.  Science  has  sympathies  for  all 
the  forms  of  art,  and  for  all  schools,  even  for 
those  the  most  opposed  to  each  other.  It  ac- 
cepts them  as  so  many  manifestations  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  judging  that  the  more  numerous  they 
are,  and  the  more  antithetical,  the  more  they 
show  the  human  mind  in  its  innumerable  and 
novel  phases.  It  is  analogous  to  botany,  which 
studies  the  orange,  the  laurel,  the  pine,  and  the 
birch,  with  equal  interest;  it  is  itself  a  species 
of  botany,  applied  not  to  plants,  but  to  the  works 
of  man.  By  virtue  of  this  it  keeps  pace  with  the 
general  movement  of  the  day,  which  now  affiliates 
the  moral  sciences  with  the  natural  sciences,  and 
which,  giving  to  the  first  the  principles,  precau- 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  39 

tions,  and  directions  of  the  second,  gives  to  them 
the  same  stability,  and  assures  them  the  same 
progress. 


n. 

I  WISH  to  apply  at  once  this  method  to  the 
first  and  principal  question  by  which  a  course  of 
aesthetics  is  opened  out,  and  which  is  a  definition 
of  art.  What  is  art,  and  in  what  does  its  nature 
consist?  Instead  of  establishing  a  formula,  I 
wish  to  familiarize  you  with  facts,  for  facts  exist 
here  as  elsewhere — positive  facts  open  to  obser- 
vation ;  I  mean  works  of  art  arranged  by  families 
in  galleries  and  libraries,  like  plants  in  an  herb- 
arium, and  animals  in  a  museum.  Analysis 
may  be  applied  to  the  one  as  to  the  others ;  a 
work  of  art  may  be  investigated  generally,  as  we 
investigate  a  plant  or  an  animal  generally.  There 
is  no  more  need  of  discarding  experience  in  the 
first  case  than  in  the  second ;  the  entire  process 
consists  in  discovering,  by  numerous  comparisons 
and  progressive  eliminations,  traits  common  to 
all  works  of  art,  and,  at  the  same  tune,  the  dis- 
tinctive traits  by  which  works  of  art  fire  separa- 


NATURE  OF  TIIE  WORK  OF  ART.  41 

ted  from  other  productions  of  tho  human  irtel 
lect 

To  this  end  we  will,  among  the  five  great  arts 
of  poetry,  sculpture,  painting,  architecture,  and 
music,  set  aside  the  last  two,  of  which  the  ex- 
planation is  more  difficult,  and  to  which  we  will 
return  afterwards ;  we  shall  at  present  consider 
only  the  first  three.  AH,  as  you  are  aware,  pos- 
sess a  common  character,  that  of  being  more  or 
less  imitative  arts. 

At  the  first  glance,  it  seems  that  this  is  their 
principal  character,  and  their  object  is  imitation 
as  exact  as  possible.  For  it  is  plain  that  a  statue 
is  meant  to  imitate  accurately  a  really  living 
man ;  that  a  picture  is  intended  to  portray  real 
persons  in  real  attitudes,  the  interior  of  a  house 
and  a  landscape,  such  as  nature  presents.  It  is 
no  less  evident  that  a  drama,  a  romance,  attempts 
to  represent  faithfully  characters,  actions,  and 
actual  speech,  and  to  give  as  precise  and  as  ac- 
curate a  picture  of  them  as  is  possible.  When, 
accordingly,  the  image  is  inadequate  or  inexact, 
we  say  to  the  sculptor,  "This  breast  or  this  limb 


42  TEE  PHILC80PHY  OF  ART. 

is  not  well  executed ;"  and  to  the  painter.  "The 
figures  of  your  background  are  too  large — the 
coloring  of  your  trees  is  faulty  ;'*  and  we  say  to 
the  author,  "Never  did  man  feel  or  think  as  you 
have  imagined  him." 

But  there  are  other  proofs,  still  stronger,  and 
first,  every-day  experience.  When  we  behold 
what  takes  place  in  the  life  of  an  artist,  we  per- 
ceive that  it  is  generally  divided  into  two  sec- 
tions. During  the  first,  hi  the  youth  and  maturity 
of  his  talent,  he  sees  tilings  as  they  are,  and 
studies  them  minutely  and  earnestly;  he  fixes  his 
eyes  on  them ;  he  labors  and  worries  to  express 
them,  and  he  expresses  them  with  more  than 
scrupulous  fidelity.  Arriving  at  a  certain  mo- 
ment of  lif  e,  he  thinks  he  understands  them  thor- 
oughly and  discovers  no  more  novelty  in  them  ; 
he  casts  aside  the  living  model,  and  with  certain 
prescribed  rules  which  he  has  picked  up  in  the 
course  of  his  experience  he  forms  a  drama  or  a 
romance,  a  picture  or  a  statue.  The  first  epoch 
is  that  of  natural  feeling;  the  second  that  of  man- 
nerism and  decline.  If  we  penetrate  the  lives  of 


MATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OP  ART.  43 

the  greatest  men,  we  rarely  fail  to  discover  both. 
In  the  life  of  Michael  Angelo,  the  first  period 
lasted  a  long  time,  a  little  less  than  sixty  years; 
all  the  works  belonging  to  it  disclose  the  senti- 
ment of  force  and  heroic  grandeur.  The  artist  is 
imbued  with  it;  he  has  no  other  thought.  His 
numerous  dissections,  his  countless  drawings,  the 
urn-emitted  analysis  of  his  own  heart,  his  study  of 
the  tragic  passions  and  of  their  physical  expres- 
sion, are  for  him  but  the  means  of  manifesting 
outwardly  the  militant  energy  with  which  he  is 
carried  away.  This  idea  descends  upon  you  from 
every  corner  of  the  great  vault  of  the  Sistine 
chapel.  Enter  the  Pauline  chapel  alongside  of 
it,  and  contemplate  the  works  of  his  old  age— the 
Conversion  of  St.  Paul,  the  Crucifixion  of  Si 
Peter;  consider  even  the  Last  Judgment,  which 
he  painted  in  his  seventy-seventh  year.  Connois- 
seurs, and  those  who  are  not,  recognize  at  once 
that  the  two  frescoes  are  executed  according  to 
prescribed  rules ;  that  an  artist  possessed  a  cer- 
tain number  of  forms,  which  he  used  convention- 
ally ;  that  he  multiplied  extraordinary  attitudes, 


±4  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

and  ingeniously  contrived  foreshorteniiigs ;  tliat 
the  lively  invention,  naturalness,  the  great  trans- 
port of  the  heart,  the  perfect  truth  peculiar  to  his 
first  works,  have,  at  least  in  part,  disappeared 
from  the  abuse  of  technique  and  the  force  of 
routine ;  and  that  if  he  is  still  superiorto  others, 
he  is  greatly  jboferior  to  himself.... 

The  same  comment  may  be  made  on  another 
life — that  of  our  French  Michael  Angelo,  Cor- 
neille.  In  the  first  years  of  his  life,  Corneille 
was  likewise  struck  by  the  feeling  of  force,  and  of 
moral  heroism.  He  found  it  around  him  in  the 
vigorous  passions  bequeathed  by  the  religious 
wars  to  the  new  monarchy ;  in  the  daring  acts  of 
duelists;  in  the  proud  feeling  of  honor  which 
still  carried  away  the  devotees  of  feudalism;  in 
the  bloody  tragedies  which  the  plots  of  princes 
and  the  executions  of  Richelieu  furnished  as  spec- 
tacles for  the  court ;  and  he  created  personages 
like  Chimene  and  the  Cid,  like  Pdyeude  and 
Pauline,  like  Cornelie,  Sertoritis,  J^mUie,  and  les 
Horaces.  Afterwards  he  produced  Pertkarite,  At- 
&Za,  and  other  feeble  works,  in  which  the  situations 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  45 

merge  into  the  horrible,  and  generous  emotions 
lose  themselves  in  extravagance.  In  this  period 
the  living  models  he  once  contemplated  no  longer 
had  a  social  setting ;  at  least  he  no  longer  sought 
them,  he  failed  to  renew  his  inspiration.  He  was 
governed  by  prescribed  rules  due  to  the  memory 
of  processes  which  he  had  formerly  found  in  the 
heat  of  enthusiasm,  literary  theories,  dissertations 
and  distinctions  on  theatrical  catastrophes  and 
dramatic  licenses.  He  copied  and  exaggerated 
himself;  learning,  calculation  and  routine  shut 
out  from  him  the  direct  and  personal  contempla- 
tion of  powerful  emotions  and  of  noble  actions; 
he  no  longer  created,  bui  mjmufa^jnarad* 

It  is  not  alone  the  history  of  this  or  that  great 
man  which  proves  to  us  the  necessity  of  imitating 
the  living  model,  and  of  keeping  the  eye  fixed  on 
nature,  but  rather  the  history  of  every  great  school 
of  art.  Every  school  (I  believe  without  excep- 
tion) degenerates  and  falls,  simply  through  its 
neglect  of  exact  imitation,  and  its  abandonment 
of  the  living  model.  You  see  it  in  painting,  in  the 
fabricators  of  muscles  and  exaggerated 


4(5  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

who  succeeded  Michael  Angelo ;  in  the  sciolists 
of  theatrical  decorations  and  in  the  brawny  ro- 
tundities which  have  followed  the  great  Vene- 
tians ;  and  in  the  great  boudoir  and  alcove  paint- 
ers which  closed  the  French  school  of  art  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  same  thing  occurs  in 
literature,  with  the  versifiers  and  rhetoricians  of 
the  Latin  decadence ;  with  the  sensual  and  de- 
clamatory playwrights  closing  the  bright  periods 
of  the  English  drama,  and  with  the  manufacturers 
of  sonnets,  puns,  witticisms,  and  bombast  of  the 
Italian  decline.  Among  these  I  will  cite  two 
striking  examples.  The  first  is  the  decline  of 
sculpture  and  painting  in  antiquity,  of  which  you 
obtain  a  vivid  impression  by  visiting  Pompeii, 
and  afterwards  Ravenna.  At  Pompeii  the  paint- 
ing and  sculpture  belong  to  the  first  century  of  the 
present  era ;  at  Eavenna  the  mosaics  are  of  the 
sixth  century,  about  the  times  of  the  Emperor 
Justinian.  In  this  interval  of  five  centuries  art 
becomes  irremediably  corrupt,  and  its  degeneracy 
is  wholly  due  to  the  neglect  of  the  living  model. 
In  the  first  century  the  pagan  manners  and  tastes 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  47 

of  the  pakestra  still  existed.  Men  wore  their  vest- 
ments loose  and  cast  them  off  easily,  frequented 
the  baths,  exercised  in  a  state  of  nudity,  witnessed 
the  combats  of  the  circus,  ever  contemplating 
sympathetically  and  intelligently  the  active  move- 
ments of  the  living  body.  Their  sculptors  and 
painters,  surrounded  by  nude  and  half-nude 
forms,  were  capable  of  reproducing  them.  Ac- 
cordingly, you  will  see  on  the  walls  of  Pompeii,  in 
the  little  oratories  and  in  the  inner  courts,  beau- 
tiful dancing  females,  spirited,  supple  young  he- 
roes, with  manly  chests,  agile  feet,  every  posture 
and  form  of  the  body  rendered  with  an  ease  and 
accuracy  to  which  the  most  elaborate  study  of  the 
present  day  cannot  attain.  During  the  following 
five  hundred  years  everything  gradually  changes. 
Pagan  manners,  the  use  of  the  palaestra,  and  the 
love  of  the  nude,  disappear.  The  body  is  no 
longer  exposed,  but  concealed  under  compli- 
cated drapery,  and  under  a  display  of  lace,  pur- 
ple, and  oriental  magnificence.  People  no  longer 
esteem  the  wrestler  and  the  youthful  gymnast,* 


|8  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

but  the  eunuch,  the  scribe,  the  monk,  and  the 
woman.  Asceticism  gains  ground,  and  with  it  a 
love  for  listless  reverie,  nollow  disputation,  scrib- 
bling and  wrangling.  The  worn-out  babblers  of 
the  Lower  Empire  replace  the  valiant  Greek  ath- 
letes and  the  hardy  combatants  of  Rome.  By  de- 
grees the  knowledge  and  study  of  the  living  model 
are  interdicted.  People  have  discarded  it.  Their 
eyes  rest  only  on  the  works  of  ancient  masters, 
and  they  copy  these.  Soon  copies  are  only  made 
of  copies,  and  again  copies  of  these,  so  that  each 
generation  recedes  a  step  from  the  original  type. 
The  artist  ceases  to  have  his  own  idea  and  his 
own  feeling,  and  becomes  a  copying  machine. 
The  Fathers  declare  that  he  must  invent  nothing, 
but  must  adhere  to  lineaments  prescribed  by  tra- 
dition and  sanctioned  by  authority.  This  sepa- 
ration of  the  artist  from  the  living  model  brings 
art  to  the  condition  in  which  you  see  it  at  Ba 
venna.  At  the  end  of  five  centuries,  artists  can 
only  represent  man  in  two  ways — seated  and 
standing;  other  attitudes  are  too  difficult,  and 
are  beyond  their  capacity.  Hands  and  feet  ap« 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  49 

pear  rigid  as  if  fractured,  the  folds  of  drapery  are 
wooden,  figures  seem  to  be  manikins,  and  heads 
are  invaded  by  the  eyes.  Art  is  like  an  invalid 
sinking  under  a  mortal  consumption;  it  is  lan- 
guishing, and  about  to  expire. 

In  a  different  branch  of  art  amongst  ourselves, 
and  in  a  neighboring  century,  we  find  again  a  sim- 
ilar decline,  and  brought  about  by  similar  causes. 
In  the  age  of  Louis  XTV.,  literature  attained  to  a 
perfect  style,  to  a  purity,  to  a  precision,  to  a  so- 
briety of  which  we  have  no  example;  dramatic 
art,  especially,  created  a  language  and  a  style  of 
versification  deemed  by  all  Europe  a  masterpiece 
of  the  human  intellect.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  of 
writers  finding  their  models  around  them  and 
constantly  observing  them.  The  language  of 
Louis  XIV.  was  perfect,  displaying  a  dignity,  elo- 
quence, and  gravity  truly  royal.  We  know  by 
the  letters,  dispatches,  and  memoirs  of  the  court 
personages  of  that  time,  that  an  aristocratic  tone, 
sustained  elegance,  propriety  of  terms,  dignified 
manners,  and  the  art  of  correct  speaking,  were  as 
common  to  courtiers  as  to  monarch ;  so  that  the 
5 


50  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

writer  frequenting  their  society,  had  but  to  draw 
on  his  memory  and  experience  in  order  to  obtain 
the  very  best  materials  of  his  art 


m. 

Is  this  true  in  every  particular,  and  must  we 
conclude  that  absolutely  exact  imitation  is  the 
end  of  art  ? 

If  this  were  so,  gentlemen,  absolutely  exact 
imitation  would  produce  the  finest  works.  But, 
in  fact,  it  is  not  so.  In  sculpture,  for  instance, 
casting  is  the  process  by  which  a  faithful  and 
minute  impression  of  a  model  is  obtained,  and 
certainly  a  good  cast  is  not  equal  to  a  good 
statue.  Again,  and  in  another  domain,  photog- 
raphy is  the  art  which  completely  reproduces 
with  lines  and  tints  on  a  flat  surface,  without 
possible  mistake,  the  forms  and  modeling  of  the 
object  imitated.  Photography  is  undoubtedly  a 
useful  auxiliary  to  painting,  and  is  sometimes 
tastefulh  employed  by  cultivated  and  intelligent 
men ;  but  after  all,  no  one  thinks  of  comparing  it 
with  painting.  And  finally,  as  a  last  illustration, 
if  it  were  true  that  exact  imitation  is  the  supreme 


52  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

aim  of  art,  let  me  ask  what  would  be  the  besi 
tragedy?  the  best  comedy?  the  best  drama ?  A 
stenographic  report  of  a  criminal  trial,  every 
word  of  which  is  faithfully  recorded.  It  is  clear, 
however,  that  if  we  sometimes  encounter  in  it 
flashes  of  nature  and  occasional  outbursts  of 
sentiment,  these  are  but  veins  of  pure  metal  in  a 
mass  of  worthless  dross ;  it  may  furnish  a  writer 
with  materials  for  his  art,  but  it  does  not  con- 
stitute a  work  of  art 

Some  may  possibly  say,  that  photography, 
casting,  and  stenography  are  mechanical  proc- 
esses, and  that  we  ought  to  leave  mechanism 
out  of  the  question,  and  accordingly  limit  our 
comparisons  to  man's  work.  Let  us,  therefore, 
select  works  by  artists  conspicuous  for  minute 
fidelity.  There  is  a  canvas  in  the  Louvre  by 
Denner.  This  artist  worked  microscopically, 
taking  four  years  to  finish  a  portrait.  Nothing 
in  his  heads  is  overlooked — the  finest  lines  and 
wrinkles,  the  faintly  mottled  surface  of  the 
cheeks,  the  black  specks  scattered  over  the  nose, 
the  bluish  flush  of  imperceptible  veins  meander- 


SATURE  OP  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  $£ 

ing  under  the  skin,  nor  the  reflection  of  objects 
in  the  •vicinity  on  the  eye.  We  are  struck  with 
astonishment.  This  head  is  a  perfect  illusion; 
it  seems  to  project  out  of  the  frame.  Such  suc- 
cess and  such  patience  are  unparalleled.  Sub 
Btantially,  however,  a  broad  sketch  by  Van  Dyck 
is  a  hundredfold  more  powerful.  Beside,  neither 
in  painting  nor  in  any  other  art  are  prizes 
awarded  to  deceptions. 

A  second  and  stronger  proof,  that  exact  imita- 
tion is  not  the  end  of  art,  is  to  be  found  in  this 
fact,  that  certain  arts  are  purposely  inexact. 
There  is  sculpture,  for  instance.  A  stattie  is 
generally  of  one  color,  either  of  bronze  or  of 
marble;  and  again,  the  eyes  are  without  eye- 
balls. It  is  just  tliia  uniformity  of  tint,  and  this 
modification  of  moral  expression,  which  com- 
pletes its  beauty.  Examine  corresponding  works, 
in  which  imitation  is  pushed  to  extremity.  The 
churches  of  Naples  and  Spain  contain  draped 
statues,  colored ;  saints  in  actual  monastic  garb, 
with  yellow  earthy  skins,  suitable  to  ascetics,  and 
bleeding  hands  and  wounded  sides  characteristic 


54  TBS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  Alii 

of  the  martyred.  •  Alongside  of  these  appeal 
madonnas,  in  royal  robes,  in  festive  dresses,  and 
in  bright  silks,  crowned  with  diadems,  wearing 
precious  necklaces,  brilliant  ribbons,  and  mag- 
nificent laces,  and  with  rosy  complexions,  glitter- 
ing eyes,  and  eyeballs  formed  of  carbuncles.  By 
this  excess  of  literal  imitation,  the  artist  gives 
no  pleasure,  but  repugnance,  often  disgust,  and 
sometimes  horror. 

It  is  the  same  in  literature.  The  best  half  of 
dramatic  poetry,  every  classic  Greek  and  French 
drama,  and  the  greater  part  of  Spanish  and  Eng- 
lish dramas,  far  from  literally  copying  ordinary 
conversation,  intentionally  modify  human  speech. 
Each  of  these  dramatic  poets  makes  his  charac- 
ters speak  in  verse,  casting  their  dialogue  in 
rhythm,  and  often  in  rhyme.  Is  this  modifica- 
tion prejudicial  to  the  work  ?  Far  from  it.  One 
of  the  great  works  of  the  age,  the  "Iphigenia"  of 
Goethe,  which  was  at  first  written  in  prose  and 
afterwards  re-written  in  verse,  affords  abundant 
evidence  of  this.  It  is  beautiful  in  prose,  but  in 
verse  what  a  difference!  The  modification  of 


JfATUliS  OF  TEE  WORK  OF  ART.  55 

ordinary  language,  in  the  introduction  of  rhythm 
and  metre,  evidently  gives  to  this  work  its  in- 
comparable accent,  that  calm  sublimity,  that 
broad,  sustained  tragic  tone,  which  elevates  the 
spirit  above  the  low  level  of  common  life,  and 
brings  before  the  eye  the  heroes  of  ancient  days 
— that  lost  race  of  primitive  souls — and,  among 
them,  the  august  virgin,  interpreter  of  the  gods, 
custodian  of  the  laws,  and  the  benefactress  of 
mankind,  in  whom  is  concentrated  whatever  is 
noble  and  good  in  human  nature,  in  order  to 
glorify  our  species  and  renew  the  inspiration  of 
our  hearts. 


IV. 

IT  is  essential,  then,  to  closely  imitate  some- 
thing  in  an  object  j  bat  not  everything.  We  have 
now  to  discover  what  imitation  should  be  applied 
to.  Anticipating  an  answer  to  this,  I  reply,  "To 

f       •      •    11 

the  relationships  and  mutual  dependence  of 
parts."  Excuse  this  abstract  definition — I  will 
make  my  meaning  clearer  to  you. 

Imagine  yourselves  before  a  living  model,  man 
or  woman,  with  a  pencil,  and  a  piece  of  paper 
twice  the  dimensions  of  your  hand,  on  which  to 
copy  it.    Certainly,  vou  cannot  be.  expQcted.,.iQM 
reproduce  the  magnitude  of  the  limbs,  for  your 

-  :  -,^..><-*,v»mT*v'"?:.'N'T''fl'*fl-'*^<"^'o.ii»^<-r"'-"!*""  •'Mwi'v^ *f-.-**r*i ** ••'ir^* i , ,  j , ***** 

paper  is  too  small;  nor^can  vou  be^expectgd,J.9 
reproduce  their  color,  for  you  have  only  black 
and  white  to  work  wjth^  What  vou  have  to  do  is 
to  reproduce  their  rdaiionsMps+.QJidi  first  the  pro- 

•w*nwu*«*fl«t>*wi-*v*1^'"1"v"v 

portions,  that  is  to  say,  the  relationships  of  mag- 
nitude. If  the  head  is  of  a  certain  length,  the 
body  must  be  so  many  times  longer  than  the 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  57 

head,  the  arm  of  a  length  equally  dependent  on 
that,  and  the  leg  the  same ;  and  so  on  with  the 
other  members.  Again,  you  are  required  to  re- 
produce forms,  or  the  relationships  of  position: 
this  or  that  curve,  oval,  angle,  or  sinuosity  in  the 
model  must  be  repeated  in  the  copy  by  a  line  of 
the  same  nature.  In  short,  your  object  is  to  re- 
produce the  aggregate  of  relationships,  by  which 
tho  parts  are  linked  together  and  nothing  else; 
it  is  not  the  simple  corporeal  appearance  that  you 
have  to  give,  but  the  logic  of  the  whole  body. 

Suppose,  in  like  manner,  you  are  contemplating 
some  actual  character,  some  scene  in  real  life, 
high  or  low,  and  you  are  asked  to  furnish  a  de- 
scription of  it.  To  do  this  you  have  your  eyes, 
your  ears,  your  memory,  and,  perhaps,  a  pencil, 
to  dot  down  five  or  six  notes — no  great  means, 
bnt  ample  for  your  purpose.  What  is  expected 
of  you  is,  not  to  record  every  word  and  motion, 
all  the  actions  of  the  personage,  or  of  the  fifteen 
or  twenty  persons  that  are  figured  before  you, 
but,  as  before,  to  note  proportions,  connections, 
and  relationships ;  you  are  expected,  in  the  first 


58  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

place,  to  keep  exactly  the  proportion  of  the  ac- 
tions of  the  personage,  in  other  words,  to  give 
prominence  to  amBitious  acts,  If  lie  is  ambitious, 
t»"avaiTci6us  acls|  If TKe 


TenTfact's,  if  he  is  violent ;  after  this,  to  observe^ 
the  reciprocal  connection  of  these  same  acts ;  that 
is  "to  say,  to  provoke  one  reply  by  another,  to 
originate  a  resolution,  a  sentiment,  an  idea  by  an 
idea,  a  sentiment,  a  preceding  resolution,  and 
moreover  by  the  actual  condition  of  the  person- 
age; in  addition  to  that,  still  by  the  general 
character  bestowed  on  him.  In  short,  in  the  lit- 

6T&1*V  GllOIuj  8)S  1TI  LilG  T31CTO1*1<11  OJXOrtJj  It  IS  IDTpOlV 

tant  to  transcribe,  not  the  visible  outlines  of  per- 
sons and  events,  but  the  aggregate  of  their  rela- 
tionships and  inter-dependencies, Jfoatjsjbo  say, 
theirlojjie. 

As  a  general  rule,  therefore,  whatever  interests 
us  in  a  real  personage,  and  which  we  entreat  the 
artist  to  extract  and  render,  is  his  outward  or  in- 
ward logic ;  in  other  terms,  his  structure,  compo- 
sition and  action. 

We  have  here,  as  you  perceive,  corrected  tba 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  AR7.  59 

first  definition  given ;  it  is  not  canceled,  but  puri- 
fied. We  have  discovered  a  more  elevated  char- 
acter for  art,  which  thus  becomes  intellectual,  and 
not  mechanical. 


V. 

DOES  this  suffice  is?  Do  we  find  works  of  ar) 
simply  confined  to  a  reproduction  of  the  relation- 
ships of  parts?  By  no  means,  for  the  greatest 
schools  are  justly  those  in  which  actual  relation- 
ships are  most  modified.  Consider,  for  example, 
the  Italian  school  in  its  greatest  artist,  Michael 
Angelo,  and,  in  order  to  give  precision  to  our 
ideas,  let  us  recall  his  principal  work,  the  four 
marble  statues  surmounting  the  tomb  of  the 
Medicis  at  Florence.  Those  of  you  who  have  not 
seen  the  originals,  are  at  least  familiar  with  cop- 
ies of  them.  In  the  figures  of  these  men,  and 
especially  in  the  reclining  females,  sleeping  or 
waking,  the  proportions  of  the  parts  are  certainly 
not  the  same  as  in  real  personages.  Similar  fig- 
ures exist  nowhere,  even  in  Italy.  You  will  see 
there  young,  handsome,  well-dressed  men,  peas- 
ants with  bright  eyes  and  a  fierce  expression, 
academy  models  with  firm  muscles  and  a  proud 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  g] 

bearing ;  but  neither  in  a  village  nor  at  festivi- 
ties, nor  in  the  studios  of  Italy  or  elsewhere,  ai 
the  present  time  or  in  the  sixteenth  century,  does 
any  real  man  or  woman  resemble  the  indignant 
heroes  and  the  colossal  despairing  virgins  which 
this  great  artist  has  placed  before  us  in  this 
funereal  chapeL  Michael  Angelo  found  these 
types  in  his  own  genius  and  in  his  own  heart. 
In  order  to  pmafn  them  it  waa^  necessary  to  have 
the  soul  of  a  recluse,  of  a  meditative  man,  of  a 
lover  of  justice;  the  soul  of  an  impassioned  and 
generous  nature  bewildered  in  the  midst  of  ener- 
vated and  corrupt  beings,  amidst  treachery  and 
oppression,  before  the  inevitable  triumph  of 
tyranny  and  injustice,  under  the  ruins  of  liberty 
and  of  nationality,  himself  threatened  with  death, 
feeling  that  if  he  lived  it  was  only  by  favor,  and 
perhaps  only  by  a  short  respite,  incapable  of 
sycophancy  and  of  submission,  taking  refuge  en- 
tirely in  that  art  by  which,  in  the  silence  of  serv- 
itude, his  great  heart  and  his  great  despair  still 
spoke.  He  wrote  on  the  pedestal  of  his  sleeping 
statue,  "Sleep  is  sweet,  and  yet  more  sweet  is  it 
6 


g2  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

to  be  of  stone,  while  saaine  and  misery  last 
Fortunate  am  I  not  to  see— not  to  feel.  Forbeai 
to  aronse  me!  Ah!  speak  low!" 

This  is  the  sentiment  which  revealed  to  him 
such  forms.  To  express  it,  he  has  changed  the 
ordinary  proportions;  he  has  lengthened  the 
trunk  and  the  limbs,  twisted  the  torso  upon  the 
hips,  hollowed  out  the  sockets  of  the  eyes,  fur- 
rowed the  forehead  with  wrinkles  similar  to  the 
lion's  frowning  brow,  raised  mountains  of  muscles 
on  the  shoulder,  ridged  the  spine  with  tendons, 
and  so  fastened  the  vertebrae  that  it  resembles 
the  links  of  an  iron  chain  strained  to  their  utmost 
tension  and  about  to  break 

Let  us  consider,  in  like  manner,  the  Flemish 
school;  and  in  this  school  the  great  Fleming, 
Kubens,  and  one  of  the  most  striking  of  his 
works,  the  "Kermesse."  In  this  work,  no  more 
than  in  those  of  Michael  Angelo,  will  you  find  an 
imitation  of  ordinary  proportions.  Yisit  Flan- 
ders, and  observe  the  types  of  mankind  about 
you,  even  at  feastings  and  revelings,  such  as  the 
f&tes  of  Gayant,  Antwerp,  and  other  places. 


SATURB  OF  THE  WOHK  OF  AR1.  63 

You  will  see  comfortable-looking  people  eating 
much  and  drinking  more ;  serenely  smoking,  coot 
phlegmatic  bodies;  dull-looking,  and  with  mas- 
sive, irregular  features,  strongly  resembling  the 
figures  of  Teniers.  As  to  the  splendid  brutes  of 
the  "Kermesse,"  you  meet  nothing  like  them! 
Bubens  certainly  found  them  elsewhere.  After 
the  horrible  religious  wars,  this  rich  country  of 
Flanders,  so  long  devastated,  finally  attained 
peace  and  civil  security.  The  soil  is  so  good, 
and  the  people  so  prudent,  comfort  and  prosper- 
ity returned  almost  at  once.  Everybody  enjoyed 
this  new  prosperity  and  abundance  ;  the  contrast 
between  the  past  and  the  present  led  to  the  in- 
dulgence of  rude  and  carnal  instincts  let  loose 
like  horses  and  cattle  after  long  privation  in 
fresh,  green  fields,  abounding  in  the  richest  past- 
ure. Kubens  himself  was  sensible  of  them  ;  and 
the  poetry  of  gross,  sumptuous  living,  of  satisfied 
and  redundant  flesh,  of  brutal,  inordinate  merry- 
making, found  a  ready  outlet  in  the  shameless 
sensualities  and  voluptuous  ruddiness,  in  the 
whiteness  and  freshness  of  the  nudities  of  which 


64  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

he  was  so  prodigal.  In  order  to  express  all  this 
in  the  "Kermesse"  he  has  expanded  the  trunk; 
enlarged  the  thighs,  twisted  the  loins,  deepened 
the  redness  of  the  cheeks,  disheveled  the  hair, 
kindled  in  the  eyes  a  flame  of  savage,  unbridled 
desire,  unloosed  the  demons  of  disorder  in  the 
shape  of  shattered  glasses,  overturned  tables, 
howlings  and  Mssings,  a  perfect  orgie,  and  the 
most  extraordinary  culmination  of  human  bes- 
tiality ever  portrayed  upon  canvas. 

These  two  examples  show  you  that  the  artist, 
in  modifying  the  relationships  of  parts,  modifies 
them  understandingly,  purposely,  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  apparent  the  essential  character  of  the 
oT>ject,  and  consequently  its  leading  idea  accord- 
ing to  his  conception  of  it.  This  phrase,  gentle- 
men, requires  attention ;  this  essential  character 
is  what  philosophers  call  the  essence  of  things; 
and  because  of  this  they  say  that  it  is  the  aim  of 
art  to  manifest  the  essence  of  things.  "We  will 
not  retain  this  term  essence,  which  is  technical, 
but  simply  state  that  it  is  the  aim  of  art  to  mani- 
fest a  predominant  character,  some  salient  prin- 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  65 

cipal  quality,  some  important  point  of  view,  some 
essential  condition  of  being  in  the  object. 

We  here  approach  the  true  definition  of  art, 
and  accordingly  need  to  be  perfectly  clear.  We 
must  insist  on  and  precisely  define  essential 
character.  I  would  premise  at  once  that  it  is  a 

•^•^ 

Ji     quality  from  which  all  others,  or  at  least  most  other 

j      qualities,  are  derived  according  to  definite  affinities. 

^K  v^Grant  me  again  this  abstract  definition:  a  few 

illustrations  will  make  it  plain  to  you. 
^ 

The  essential  character  of  a  lion,  giving  him 

his  rank  in  the  classifications  of  natural  history, 
is  that  of  a  great  flesh-eater ;  nearly  all  his  traits, 
whether  physical  or  moral,  as  I  am  about  to 
prove  to  you,  are  derived  from  this  trait  as  their 
i  fountain-head.    First,  there  are  physical  traits: 
^«A  his  teeth  move  like  shears;  he  has  a  jaw  con- 
j\  P    structed  to  tear  and  to  crush;  and  necessarily, 
^y  >  for.  being  carnivorous,  he  has  to  nourish  himself 
^.  S  with,  and  prey  upon,  living  game ;  in  order  to 
.      manoeuvre  this  formidable  instrument  he  requires 
|    *)  enormous  muscles,  and  for  their  insertion,  tem- 
poral sockets  of  proportionate  size.    Add  to  the 


66  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

feet  other  instruments,  the  terrible  contractile 
claws,  the  quick  step  on  the  extremity  of  the 
toes,  a  terrible  elasticity  of  the  thighs  acting  like 
a  powerful  spring,  and  eyes  that  see  best  ai 
night,  because  night  is  the  best  hunting-time.  A 
naturalist,  pointing  to  a  lion's  skeleton,  once  said 
to  me,  "There  is  a  jaw  mounted  on  foui^pawjj." 

The  moral  points  of  the  lion  are  likewise  in 
harmony.  At  first,  there  is  the  sanguinary  in- 
stinct— the  craving  for  fresh  flesh,  and  a  repug- 
nance for  every  other  food;  next,  the  strength 
and  the  nervous  excitement  through  which  the 
lion  concentrates  an  enormous  amount  of  force 
at  the  instant  of  attack  and  defense ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  his  somniferous  habits,  the  grave, 
sombre  inertia  of  moments  of  repose,  and  the 
long  yawnings  after  the  excitement  of  the  chase. 
All  these  traits  are  derived  from  his  carnivorous 
character,  and  on  this  account  we  call  it  his 
essential  character. 

Let  us  now  consider  a  more  difficult  case,  that 
of  an  entire  country,  with  its  innumerable  details 
of  structure,  aspect,  and  cultivation;  its  plants, 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  $J 

animate,  inhabitants,  and  towns ;  as,  for  example, 
the  Low  Countries.  The  essential  character  oj[ 
this  region  is  its  alluvial  formation;  that  is  to 


say,  a  formation  due  to  vast  quantities  of  earth 
brought  down  by  streams  and  deposited  about 
their  mouths.  From  this  single  term  spring  an 
infinity  of  peculiarities,  summing  up  the  entire 

ii    i  »mr  •••"•-  •*«-.  -l(  Mil  1r  r^rt^.T|n  -<mj<tojrrMi<i,i;^vtftj|taBa>^g^>^^^ai^MMaaa^aiMiMtf>t 

nature  of  the  country  not  only  its  physical  out- 
lines, what  it  is  in  itself,  but  again  the  intellect- 
ual, moral,  and  physical  qualities  of  its  inhabit- 
ants, and  of  their  works.  At  first,  in  the  inani- 
mate world,  come  its  moist  and  fertile  plains,  the 
necessary  consequence  of  numerous  broad  rivers 
and  vast  deposits  of  productive  soil.  These 
plains  are  always  green,  because  broad,  tranquil, 
and  sluggish  streams,  and  the  innumerable  canals 
so  easily  constructed  in  soft,  flat  ground,  main- 
tain perennial  verdure.  You  can  readily  imagine, 
and  on  purely  rational  principles,  the  aspect  of 
such  a  country — a  dull,  rainy  sky,  constantly 
streaked  with  showers,  and  even  on  fine  days 
veiled  as  if  by  gauze  with  light  vapory  clouds 
rising  from  the  wet  surface,  forming  a  trans- 


68  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AMI, 

parent  dome,  an  airy  tissue  of  delicate,  snowy 
fleeces,  over  the  broad  verdant  expanse  stretch- 
ing out  of  sight  and  rounded  to  the  distant  hori- 
zon. In  the  animated  kingdom  these  numerous 
luxuriant  pastures  attract  countless  herds  of  cat- 
tle, who  recline  tranquilly  on  the  grass,  or  rumi- 
nate over  their  cud,  and  dot  the  flat  green  sward 
with  innumerable  spots  of  white,  yellow,  and 
black.  Hence  the  rich  stores  of  milk  and  meat, 
which,  added  to  the  grains  and  vegetables  raised 
I>n  this  prolific  soil,  furnish  its  inhabitants  with 
cheap  and  abundant  supplies  of  food.  It  might 
well  be  said  that  in  this  country  water  makes 
grass,  grass  makes  cattle,  cattle  make  cheese, 
butter,  and  meat ;  and  all  these,  with  beer,  make 
the  inhabitant.  Indeed,  out  of  this  fat  living, 
and  out  of  this  physical  organization  saturated 
with  moisture,  spring  the  phlegmatic  tempera- 
ment, the  regular  habits,  the  tranquil  mind  and 
nerves,  the  capacity  to  take  life  easily  and  pru- 
dently, unbroken  contentment  and  love  of  well- 
being,  and,  consequently,  the  reign  of  cleanliness 
and  the  perfection  of  comfort.  These  conse- 


XAIURB  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  fly 

quences  extend  so  far  as  even  to  affect  the  aspect 
of  towns.  In  an  alluvial  country  there  is  nc 
stone;  building  material  consists  of  terra-cotta, 
bricks,  and  tiles.  Bains  being  frequent  and 
heavy,  roofs  are  very  sloping,  and  as  dampness 
lasts  a  long  time,  their  fronts  are  painted  and 
varnished.  A  Flemish  town,  therefore,  is  a  net- 
work of  brown  or  red  edifices  always  neat,  occa- 
sionally glittering  and  with  pointed  gables ;  here 
and  there  rises  an  old  church  constructed  of 
shingle  or  of  rubble ;  streets  in  the  best  of  order 
run  between  two  scrupulously  clean  lines  of  side- 
walk. In  Holland  the  sidewalks  are  laid  in 
brick,  frequently  intermingled  with  coarse  porce- 
lain :  domestics  may  be  seen  at  an  early  hour  in 
the  morning  on  their  knees  cleaning  them  off 
with  cloths.  Cast  your  eyes  through  the  dazzling 
window-panes;  enter  a  club-room  decked  with 
green  branches,  with  its  floor  powdered  with 
sand  constantly  renewed;  visit  the  taverns, 
brightly  painted,  where  rows  of  casks  display 
their  brown  rotund  sides,  and  where  tbe  rich 
yellow  beer  foams  up  cut  of  glasses  covered  with 


70  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ABI 

quaint  devices.  In  all  these  details  of  commoL 
life,  in  all  these  signs  of  inward  contentment  and 
enduring  prosperity,  you  detect  the  effects  of  the 

great  underlying  characteristic  which  is  stamped 

*^_1 v..,...,,..^,.»,.«i -x~-,~-^~«._.,,OTt.   ^^^.^•"^•"--•"'"" — 

upon  the  climate  and  the  soil,  upon  the  vegetable 

Krigcloiii  and  the  animal  kingdom,  upon  man  and 
bis  works,  upon  society  and  the  individual^  _ 

Through  these  innumerable  effects,  you  judge 
of  the  importance  of  this  essential  character.  It 
is  this  which  art  must  bring  forward  into  proper 
light,  and  if  this  task  devolves  upon  art,  it  is  be- 
cause nature  fails  to  accomplish  it.  In  nature, 
this  essential  character  is  simply  dominant ;  it  is  \ 
iEe  aim  of  art  to  render  it  predominant.  It  » 

^l>_-^,-,-*<,».'!.'4.1>«r%\L,T-ff5/1;".\--U->ft,  ^f  V 

moulds  real  objects,  but  it  does  not  mould  them 
completely  :  its  action  is  restricted,  impeded  by 
the  intervention  of  other  causes ;  its  impression 
on  objects  bearing  its  stamp  is  not  sufficiently 
strong  to  be  clearly  visible.  Man  is  sensible  of 
tills  deficiency;  and  to  remove  it  he  has  invented 

MtT 

Let  us  again  take  up  Bubens*  "Kermesse." 
These  blooming  merry  wives,  these  roistering 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  Of  ART.  71 

drunkards,  these  busts  and  visages  of  burly  on* 
bridled  brutes,  probably  found  counterparts  in 
the  carousals  of  the  day.  Over-nourished  and 
exuberant  nature  aimed  at  producing  such  gross 
forms  and  such  coarse  manners,  but  she  only 
half  accomplished  her  task ;  other  causes  inter- 
vened to  stay  this  excess  of  a  carnal,  jovial  energy. 
There  is,  at  first,  poverty.  In  the  best  of  times, 
and  in  the  best  countries,  many  people  have  not 
enough  to  eat,  and  fasting,  at  least  partial  absti- 
nence, misery,  and  bad  air,  all  the  accompani 
ments  of  indigence,  diminish  the  development  and 
boisterousness  of  native  brutality.  A  suffering 
man  is  not  so  strong,  and  more  sober.  Keligion, 
police  regulations,  and  habits  due  to  steady  labor, 
operate  in  the  same  direction ;  education  does  its 
part.  Out  of  a  hundred  subjects  who,  under 
favorable  conditions,  might  have  furnished  Ku- 
bens  with  models,  only  five  or  six,  perhaps,  could 
be  of  any  service  to  him.  Suppose  now  that 
these  five  or  six  figures  in  the  actual  festivities 
whici  he  might  have  seen  were  lost  in  a  crowd  of 
people  more  or  less  indifferent  and  common 


72  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AR'i 

consider  again,  that  at  the  moment  tncy 
under  his  eye  they  exhibited  neither  the  attitude, 
the  expression,  the  gestures,  the  abandonment 
the  costume,  or  the  disorder  requisite  to  make 
this  teeming  excitement  apparent.  Through  all 
these  drawbacks  nature  called  art  to  its  aid ;  she 
could  not  clearly  distinguish  the  character;  it 
was  necessary  that  the  artist  should  supplement 
her. 

Thus  is  it  with  every  superior  work  of  art. 
While  Raphael  was  painting  his  "Galatea,"  he 
wrote  that,  beautiful  women  being  scarce,  he 
was  following  a  conception  of  his  own.  This 
means  that,  looking  at  human  nature  from  a 
certain  point  of  view,  its  repose,  its  felicity,  its 
gracious  and  dignified  sweetness,  he  found  no 
living  model  to  express  it  satisfactorily.  The 
peasant  or  laboring  girl,  who  posed  for  hint 
had  hands  deformed  by  work,  feet  spoiled  by 
their  covering,  and  eyes  disordered  by  shame, 
or  demoralized  by  her  calling.  His  "Forna- 
rina"  has  drooping  shoulders,  a  meagre  arm 
above  the  elbow,  a  hard  and  contracted  expres- 


NATURE  OF  TILE  WORK  OF  ART.  73 

eion.*  If  he  painted  her  in  the  Famesini  Pal- 
ace, he  completely  transformed  her,  developing 
a  character  in  his  painted  figure  of  which  the  real 
figure  only  contributed  parts  and  suggestions. 

Thus  the  province  of  a  work_of_ari; Js,.  to..jm=.. 
der  the  essential  character,  or,  at  least,  some 
capital  quality,  the  predominance  of  which  must 
be  made  as  perceptible  asjpossible.  In  order  to_ 
accomplish  this  the  artist  must  suppress  whatever 
conceals  it,  select  whatever  manifests  it,  correct 
every  detail  by  which  it  is  enfeebled,  and  recast 
Ihoae  in  ujncih  it  is  nentraKgecL 

Let  us  no  longer  consider  works  but  artists, 
that  is  to  say,  the  way  in  which  artists  feel,  in- 
vent, and  produce:  you  will  find  it  consistent 
with  the  foregoing  conception  of  the  work  of  art. 
There  is  one  gift  indispensable  to  all  artists ;  no 
study,  nc  degree  of  patience,  supplies  its  place ; 
if  it  is  wanting  in  them  they  are  nothing  but 
copyists  and  mechanics.  In  confronting  objects 
the  artist  most  erperience  original  sensation;  the 

•  See  the  two  portraits  of  the  "Fornarina,"  in  the  Sciarraand 
the  Borghese  palaces. 

7 


74  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ARt 

character  of  an  object  strikes  Mm,  and  the  effect 
of  this  sensation  is  a  strong,  peculiar  impression. 
In  other  words,  when  a  man  is  born  with  talent 
liis  perceptions — or  at  least  a  certain  class  of  per- 
ceptions— are  delicate  and  quick;  he  naturally 
seizes  and  distinguishes,  with  a  sure  and  watch- 
ful tact,  relationships  and  shades;  at  one  time 
the  plaintive  or  heroic  sense  in  a  sequence  of 
sounds,  at  another  the  listlessness  or  stateliness 
of  an  attitude,  and  again  the  richness  or  sobriety 
of  two  complimentary  or  contiguous  colors. 
Through  this  faculty  he  penetrates  to  the  very 
heart  of  things,  and  seems  to  be  more  clear" 
sighted  than  other  men.  This  sensation,  more- 
over, so  keen  and  so  personal,  is  not  inactive — by 
a  counter-stroke  the  whole  nervous  and  thinking 
machinery  is  affected  by  it.  Man  involuntarily 
expresses  his  emotions;  the  body  makes  signs, 
its  attitude  becomes  mimetic;  he  is  obliged  to 
figure  externally  his  conception  of  an  object ;  the 
voice  seeks  imitative  inflections,  the  tongue  finds 
pictorial  terma,  unforeseen  forms,  a  figurative,  in- 
centive, exaggerated  style.  Under  the  force  of 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 


75 


the  original  impulse  the  active  brain  recasts  and 
transforms  the  object,  now  to  illumine  and  enno- 
ble it,  now  to  distort  and  grotesquely  pervert  it ; 
in  the  free  sketch,  as  in  the  violent  caricature, 
you  readily  detect,  with  poetic  temperaments,  the 
ascendency  of  involuntary  impressions.  Famil- 
iarize yourselves  with  the  great  artists  and  great 
authors  of  your  century ;  study  the  sketches,  de- 
signs, diaries,  and  correspondence  of  the  old 
masters,  and  you  will  again  everywhere  find  the 
same  inward  process.  We  may  adorn  it  with 
beautiful  names ;  we  may  call  it  genius  or  inspi- 
ration, which  is  right  and  proper;  but  if  you 
wish  to  define  it  precisely  you  must  always  Terify 
therein  the  vivid  spontaneous  sensation  "which, 
groups  together  the  train  of  accessory  ideas,  mas- 

LAI&  in 


ter,  fashion,  mej 

" 
order  to  become  manifest. 

___^— __^^^^^BI^***^^^ 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  definition  of  a  work 
of  art.  Let  us,  for  a  moment,  cast  our  eyes  back- 
ward, and  review  the  road  we  have  passed  over. 
We  have,  by  degrees,  arrived  at  a  conception  of 
art  more  and  more  elevated,  and  consequently 


76  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

more  and  more  exact.  At  first  we  thought  that 
the  object  of  art  was  to  imitate  sensible  appear- 
ances. Then  separating  material  from  intellectual 
imitatiDn,  we  found  that  what  it  desired  to  repro- 
duce in  sensible  appearances  is  the  relationships 
of  parts.  Finally,  remarking  that  relationships 
are,  and  ought  to  be,  modified  in  order  to  obtain 
the  highest  results  of  art,  we  proved  that  if  we 
study  the  relationships  of  parts  it  is  to  make  pre- 
dominant an  essential  character.  No  one  of  these 
definitions  destroys  its  antecedent,  but  each  cor- 
rects and  defines  it.  We  are  consequently  able 
now  to  combine  them,  and  by  subordinating  the 
inferior  to  the  superior,  thus  to  sum  up  the  re- 
sult of  our  labor : — "The  end  of  a  work  of  art  is 
to  manifest  some  essential  or  salient  character, 
consequently  some  important  idea,  clearer  and 
more  completely  than  is  attainable  from  real  ob-  . 
jects.  Art  accomplishes  this  end  by  employing  a 
group  of  connected  parts,  the  relationships  of 
which  it  systematically  modifies.  In  the  three 
imitative  arts  of  sculpture,  painting,  and  poetry, 
these  groups  correspond  to  real  objects." 


VL 

THAT  established,  gentlemen,  we  see,  on  eiam 
the  different  parts  of  this  definition,  that 
the  first  is  essential  and  the  second  accessory. 
An  aggregate  of  connected  parts  is  necessary  in 
all  art  which  the  artist  may  modify  so  as  to  por- 
tray character ;  but  in  every  art  it  is  not  neces- 
sary that  this  aggregate  should  correspond  with 
real  objects ;  it  is  sufficient  that  it  exists.  If  we 
therefore  meet  with  aggregates  of  connected  parts 
which  are  not  imitations  of  real  objects,  there 
will  be  arts  which  will  not  have  imitation  for  their 
point  of  view.  This  is  the  case,  and  it  is  thus 
that  architecture  and  music  are  born.  In  short, 
besides  connections,  proportions,  moral  and  or- 
ganic dependencies,  which  the  three  imitative 
arts  copy,  there  are  mathematical  relationships 
which  the  two  others,  imitating  nothing,  combine. 

Let  us,  at  first,  consider  the  mathematical  re- 
lationships perceived   by  the    sense    of   sight. 


78  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

Magnitudes  sensible  to  the  eye  may  form  amongst 
each  other  aggregates  of  parts  connected  by 
mathematical  laws.  For  instance,  a  piece  of 
wood  or  stone  may  have  geometrical  form,  that 
of  a  cube,  a  cone,  a  cylinder,  or  a  sphere,  which 
establishes  regular  relationships  of  distance  be- 
tween the  different  points  of  its  outline.  Fur- 
thermore, its  dimensions  may  be  quantities  mu- 
tually related  in  simple  proportions  which  the 
eye  can  seize  readily ;  height  may  be  two,  three 
or  four  times  greater  than  thickness  or  breadth : 
this  constitutes  a  second  series  of  mathematical 
relationships.  Finally,  many  of  these  pieces  of 
wood  or  stone  may  be  placed  symmetrically  on 
the  top  or  by  the  side  of  each  other,  according  to 
distances  and  angles  mathematically  combined. 
Architecture  is  established  on  this  aggregate  of 

*J\J  CJ 

connected  parts.  An  architect  conceiving  somo 
dominant  character,  either  serenity,  simplicity, 
strength,  or  elegance,  as  formerly  in  Greece  or 
Home,  or  the  strange,  the  varied,  the  infinite,  the 
fantastic,  as  in  Gothic  times,  may  select  and  com- 
bine connections,  proportions,  dimensions,  forms 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OP  ART.  79 

and  positions — in  short,  the  relationships  of  ma- 
terials, that  is  to  say,  certain  visible  magnitudes 
in  such  a  way  as  to  display  the  character  aimed 
at 

By  the  side  of  magnitudes  perceived  by  sight 
there  are  magnitudes  perceived  by  the  hearing, — 
I  mean  the  velocities  of  sonorous  vibrations; 
and  these  vibrations  being  magnitudes  may  also 
form  aggregates  of  parts  connected  by  mathemat- 
ical laws.  In  the  first  place,  as  you  are  aware,  a 
musical  sound  is  composed  of  continuous  vibra- 
tions of  equal  velocity,  and  this  equality  already 
places  between  them  a  mathematical  relation- 
ship; in  the  second  place,  two  sounds  being 
given,  the  second  may  be  composed  of  vibrations, 
two,  three,  or  four  times  the  rapidity  of  the  first ; 
accordingly,  there  is  between  these  two  sounds  a 
mathematical  relationship,  which  is  figured  by 
placing  them  at  an  equal  distance  from  each  other 
on  the  musical  stave.  If,  consequently,  instead  of 
taking  two,  we  take  a  number  of  sounds,  and 
place  them  at  equal  distances,  we  form  a  scale, 
which  scale  is  the  gamut,  all  the  sounds  being 


80  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

thus  bound  together  according  to  their  relative 
position  on  the  gamut.  You  can  now  establish 
these  connections  either  between  successive  or 
simultaneous  sounds,  the  first  order  of  sounds 
constituting  melody,  and  the  second  harmony. 
This  is  music :  it  has  two  essential  parts,  based, 
like  architecture,  on  mathematical  relationships, 
which  the  artist  is  free  to  combine  and  modify. 

Music,  however,  possesses  a  second  property, 
and  this  new  element  gives  it  a  peculiar  quality 
and  no  ordinary  scope.  Besides  its  mathemat- 
ical qualities,  sound  is  analogous  to  the  cry,  and 
by  this  title  it  directly  expresses  with  unrivaled 
precision,  delicacy  and  force,  suffering,  joy,  rage, 
indignation — all  the  agitations  and  emotions  of 
an  animated  sensitive  being,  even  to  the  most 
secret  and  most  subtle  gradations.  From  this 
point  of  view  it  is  similar  to  poetic  declamation, 
furnishing  a  specific  type  of  music,  called  the 
music  of  expression,  like  that  of  Gluck  and  the 
Germans,  in  opposition  to  the  music  of  melody, 
that  of  Rossini  and  the  Italians.  Let  the  com- 
poser's point  of  view  be  what  it  may,  the  two 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  gl 

styles  of  music  are  nevertheless  related  to  each 
other,  sounds  always  forming  aggregates  of  parts 
linked  together  at  once  by  their  mathematical 
relationship  and  by  the  correspondence  which 
they  have  with  the  passions  and  the  various  in- 
ternal states  of  the  moral  being.  The  musician, 
therefore,  who  conceives  a  certain  salient,  im- 
portant feature  of  things,  let  it  be  sadness  or  joy, 
tender  love  or  passionate  rage,  any  idea  or  sen- 
timent whatever,  may  freely  select  and  combine 
in  such  a  way  in  these  mathematical  and  moral 
relationships  as  to  manifest  the  character  which 
he  has  conceived. 

All  the  arts  are  thus  included  in  the  definition 
above  presented.  In  architecture  and  music,  as 
in  sculpture,  painting,  and  poetry,  it  is  the  object 
of  a  work  of  art  to  manifest  some  essential  char- 
acter, and  to  employ  as  means  of  expression  an 
aggregate  of  connected  parts,  the  relationship  ol 
which  the  artist  combines  and  modifies. 


vn. 

Now  that  we  know  the  nature  of  art,  we  can 
comprehend  its  importance.  Previously  we  were 
only  sensible  of  its  effect ;  it  was  a  matter  of  in- 
stinct, and  not  of  reason :  we  were  conscious  of 
respecting  and  esteeming  art,  but  were  not  quali- 
fied to  account  for  our  respect  and  esteem.  Our 
admiration  for  art  can  now  be  justified,  and  we 
can  mark  its  place  in  the  order  of  life. 

Man,  in  many  respects,  is  an  animal  endeavor 
ing  to  protect  himself  against  nature  and  against 
other  men.  He  is  obliged  to  provide  him/self 
with  food,  clothing,  and  shelter,  and  to  defend 
himself  against  climate,  want,  and  disease.  To 
do  this  he  tills  the  ground,  navigates  the  sea,  and 
devotes  himself  to  different  industrial  and  com- 
mercial pursuits.  Furthermore,  he  must  perpet- 
uate his  species,  and  secure  himself  against  the 
violence  of  his  fellow-men ;  to  this  end,  he  forma 
families  and  states,  and  establishes  magistracies, 


NATURE  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.  QQ 

functionaries,  constitutions,  laws,  and  armies. 
After  so  many  inventions  and  such  labor,  he  is 
not  yet  emancipated  from  his  original  condition ; 
he  is  still  an  animal,  better  fed  and  better  pro- 
tected than  other  animals ;  he  still  thinks  only 
of  himself,  and  of  his  kindred.  At  this  moment 
a  superior  life  dawns  on  him — that  of  contempla- 
tion, by  which  he  is  led  to  interest  himself  in  the 
creative  and  permanent  causes  on  which  his  own 
being  and  that  of  his  fellows  depend,  in  the  lead- 
ing and  essential  characters  which  rule  each  ag- 
gregate, and  impress  their  marks  on  the  minutest 
details.  Two  ways  are  open  to  him  for  this  pur- 
pose. The  first  is  Science,  by  which,  analyzing 
these  causes  and  these  fundamental  laws,  he  ex- 
presses them  in  abstract  terms  and  precise  form- 
ula; the  second  is  Art,  by  which  he  manifests 
these  causes  and  these  fundamental  laws  no 
longer  through  arid  definitions,  inaccessible  to 
the  multitude,  and  only  intelligible  to  a  favored 
few,  but  in  a  sensible  way,  appealing  not  alone  to 
reason,  but  also  to  the  heart  and  senses  of  the 
humblest  individual.  Art  has  this  peculiarity 


84  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

that  it  is  at  once  noble  and  popular,  manifesting 
whatever  is  most  exalted,  and  manifesting  it  to 
all 


PART  II. 

ON  THE  PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK 
OF  ART. 


ON  THE 

PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 


L 

HAVING  investigated  the  nature  of  the  work  of 
art,  there  now  remains  a  study  of  the  law  of  its 
production.  This  law,  in  general  terms,  may  be 
thus  expressed : — A  loork  of  art  is  determined  by 
an  aggregate  which  is  the  general  state  of  the  mind 
and  surrounding  circumstances.  I  have  stated  this 
principle  in  the  foregoing  section,  and  have  now 
to  establish  it. 

This  law  rests  on  two  kinds  of  proof :  the  one 
that  of  experience,  and  the  other  that  of  reason. 
The  former  consists  of  an  enumeration  of  the 
many  instances  in  which  the  law  verifies  itself. 
Borne  of  these  I  have  already  presented  to  you. 
and  others  will  soon  follow.  One  may  assert, 
moreover,  that  no  case  is  known  to  which  the 


38  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

law  is  not  applicable;  it  is  strictly  so  to  those 
hitherto  examined,  and  not  merely  in  a  general 
way,  but  in  detail ;  not  only  to  the  growth  and 
extinction  of  great  schools,  but  again  to  all  the 
variations  and  oscillations  to  which  art  is  subject. 
The  second  order  of  proof  consists  in  showing 
this  dependence  to  be  not  only  rigorous  in  point 
of  fact,  but,  again,  that  it  is  so  through  necessity. 
We  will  accordingly  analyze  what  we  have  called 
the  general  state  of  the  mind  and  surrounding 
circumstances;  we  shall  seek,  according  to  the 
ordinary  standard  of  human  nature  the  effects 
which  a  like  state  must  produce  on  the  public, 
on  artists,  and  consequently  on  works  of  art. 
Hence  we  draw  a  forced  connection  and  a  defi- 
nite concordance,  and  we  establish  a  necessary 
harmony  which  we  had  observed  as  simply  for- 
tuitous. The  second  proof  demonstrates  what  the 
first  had  averred. 


n. 

In  order  to  make  this  harmony  apparent  let  us 
resume  a  comparison  already  of  service  to  us, 
that  between  a  plant  and  a  work  of  art,  and  note 
the  circumstances  in  which  a  plant,  or  a  species 
of  plant,  say  the  orange,  may  be  developed  and 
propagated  in  a  certain  soil.  Let  us  suppose  all 
kinds  of  grain  and  seed  borne  by  the  wind  and 
sown  at  random ;  on  what  conditions  can  those  of 
the  orange  germinate,  become  trees,  blossom, 
yield  fruit,  spread,  and  cover  the  ground  with  a 
numerous  family? 

Many  favorable  circumstances  are  essential  to 
this  end.  And  at  first  the  soil  must  be  neither  too 
light  nor  too  meagre ;  otherwise,  the  roots  lack- 
ing depth  and  grasp,  the  tree  would  fall  at  the 
first  gale  of  wind.  Next,  the  soil  muft  not  be 
too  dry ;  otherwise  the  tree  will  wither  where  it 
stands,  deprived  of  the  moisture  of  springs  and 
streams.  Moreover,  the  climate  must  be  warm 


90  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AST. 

or  the  tree,  which  is  delicate,  will  freeze,  or  at 
least  droop,  and  never  put  forth  sprouts;  the 
summer  must  be  long,  in  order  that  the  fruit, 
which  is  slow  in  ripening,  may  fully  mature ;  and 
the  winter  mild,  so  that  January  frosts  may  not 
blast  or  shrivel  the  oranges  that  remain  green 
on  its  branches.  Finally,  the  soil  must  not  be  too 
favorable  for  other  plants,  lest  the  tree,  left  to  it- 
self, might  be  stifled  by  the  competition  and  in- 
fringement of  a  more  vigorous  vegetation.  When 
all  these  conditions  concur,  the  little  orange  will 
grow,  become  mature,  and  produce  others  again 
to  reproduce  themselves.  Storms  will  undoubt- 
edly occur,  stones  fall,  and  browsing  goats  will  de- 
stroy certain  plants ;  but  on  the  whole,  in  spite  of 
accidents  which  kill  individuals,  the  species  will 
be  propagated,  cover  the  ground,  and  in  a  few 
years  display  a  flourishing  grove  of  orange  trees. 
All  this  is  to  be  seen  in  the  admirably  sheltered 
gorges  of  Southern  Italy,  in  the  environs  of  Sor- 
rento and  Amalfi,  on  the  shores  of  the  gulfs,  and 
in  the  small,  watered  valleys,  freshened  by 
streams  descending  from  the  mountains,  and  ca- 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.         Q\ 

reeaed  by  the  beneficent  breezes  of  the  sea.  This 
concourse  of  circumstances  was  necessary  in  or- 
der to  produce  those  beautiful  round  tops,  those 
lustrous  domes  of  a  bright  deep  green,  those  in- 
numerable golden  apples,  and  that  exquisite  fra- 
grant vegetation  which,  in  mid-winter,  makes  this 
coast  the  richest  and  loveliest  of  gardens. 

Let  us  now  reflect  on  the  manner  in  which 
things  moved  in  this  example.  We  have  just  ob- 
served the  effect  of  circumstances  and  of  physical 
temperature.  Strictly  speaking,  these  have  not 
produced  the  orange ;  the  seeds  were  given,  and 
these  alone  contained  the  vital  force.  The  cir- 
cumstances described,  however,  were  necessary 
in  order  that  the  plant  might  flourish  and  be 
propagated ;  had  these  failed,  the  plant  likewise 
would  have  failed. 

Accordingly,  let  the  temperature  be  different, 
and  the  species  of  plant  will  be  different.  Sup- 
pose conditions  entirely  opposite  to  those  just 
mentioned ;  take  the  summit  of  a  mountain  swept 
by  Tiolent  winds,  with  a  thin  scanty  soil  a  cold  cli- 
mate, a  short  summer,  and  snow  during  the  win 


92  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

ter ;  not  only  will  the  orange  not  thrive  here,  but 
the  greater  part  of  other  trees  will  perish.  Of  all 
the  seeds  scattered  haphazard  by  the  wind  only 
one  will  survive,  and  you  will  see  but  one  species 
to  endure  and  be  propagated,  the  only  one 
adapted  to  these  severe  conditions;  the  fir  and 
the  pine  will  cover  the  lonely  crags,  the  abrupt 
precipices,  and  long,  rocky  ridges,  with  their  stiff 
colonnades  of  tall  trunks  and  vast  mantles  of 
sombre  green,  and  there,  as  in  the  Yosges,  in 
Scotland  and  in  Norway,  you  may  travel  league 
after  league,  under  silent  arches,  on  a  carpet  of 
crisp  leaves,  among  gnarled  roots  obstinately 
clinging  to  the  rocks,  the  domain  of  the  patient, 
energetic  plant  which  alone  subsists  under  the  in- 
cessant attacks  of  gales,  and  the  hoar-frosts  of 
long  winters. 

We  may  accordingly  regard  temperature  anJ 
physical  circumstances  as  making  a  choice 
amongst  various  species  of  trees,  allowing  a 
certain  species  to  subsist  and  propagate,  to  the 
exclusion,  more  or  less  complete,  of  all  others 
Physical  temperature  acts  by  elimination  and 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.         93 

suppression,  in  other  words,  by  natural  selection. 
Such  is  the  great  law  by  which  we  now  explain 
the  origin  and  structure  of  diverse  existing  organ- 
isms— a  law  as  applicable  to  moral  as  to  physical 
conditions,  to  history  as  well  as  to  botany  and 
zoology,  to  genius  and  to  character,  as  well  as  to 
plant  and  to  animal. 

In  short,  there  is  a  moral  temperature,  con- 
sisting of  the  general  state  of  minds  and  manners, 
which  acts  in  the  same  way  as  the  other.  Prop- 
erly speaking,  this  temperature  does  not  produce 
artists;  talent  and  genius  are  gifts  like  seeds; 
what  I  mean  to  say  is,  that  the  same  country  at 
different  epochs  probably  contains  about  the 
same  number  of  men  of  talent,  and  of  men  of 
mediocrity.  We  know,  in  fact,  through  statistics, 
that  in  two  successive  generations  nearly  the 
same  number  of  men  are  found  of  the  requisite 
stature  for  the  conscription  and  the  same  num- 
ber of  men  too  small  for  soldiers.  In  all  proba- 
bility, it  is  with  minds  as  with  bodies.  Nature  is 
a  PK>wer  of  men,  and  putting  her  hand  constantly 
in  *he  same  sack,  distributes  nearly  the  same 


94  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AET. 

quantity,  the  same  quality,  the  same  proportion 
of  seed.  But  in  these  handfuls  of  seed  which 
she  scatters  as  she  strides  over  time  and  space, 
not  all  germinate.  A  certain  moral  temperature 
is  necessary  to  develop  certain  talents ;  if  this  is 
wanting,  these  prove  abortive.  Consequently,  as 
the  temperature  changes,  so  will  the  species  of 
talent  change ;  if  it  becomes  reversed,  talent  will 
become  reversed,  and,  in  general,  we  may  con- 
ceive moral  temperature  as  making  a  selection 
'among  different  species  of  talent,  allowing  only 
this  or  that  species  to  develop,  to  the  exclusion 
more  or  less  complete  of  others.  It  is  through 
some  such  mechanism  that  you  see  developed  in 
schools  at  certain  times  and  in  certain  countries 
the  sentiment  of  the  ideal,  that  of  the  real,  that 
of  drawing  and  that  of  color.  There  is  a  pre- 
vailing tendency  which  constitutes  the  spirit  of 
the  age.  Talent  seeking  to  force  an  outlet  in  an- 
other direction,  finds  it  closed ;  and  the  force  of 
the  public  mind  and  surrounding  habits  repress 
and  lead  it  astray,  by  imposing  on  it  a  fixed 
growth. 


IIL 

THE  foregoing  comparison  may  serve  yon  as  a 
general  indication  ;  let  us  now  enter  into  details 
and  study  the  action  of  the  moral  temperature 
on  works  of  art. 

For  the  sake  of  greater  clearness  we  will  take 
a  very  simple  case,  that  of  a  certain  mental  con- 
dition, in  which  melancholy  predominates.  This 
supposition  is  not  arbitrary,  for  such  a  condition 
has  frequently  occurred  in  the  life  of  humanity : 
five  or  six  centuries  of  decadence,  depopulation, 
foreign  invasion,  famine,  pests,  and  aggravated 
misery,  are  amply  sufficient  to  produce  it.  Asia 
experienced  such  a  state  of  things  in  the  sixth 
century  before  Christ,  and  Europe  in  the  period 
of  the  first  ten  centuries  of  our  own  era.  In  times 
like  these  men  lose  both  courage  and  hope,  and 
regard  life  as  a  burden. 

Let  us  contemplate  the  effect  of  such  a  mental 
•oudition,  together  with  the  circumstances  which 


tjQ  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

engender  it,  on  the  artists  of  an  epoch  like  this. 
We  admit  that  nearly  the  same  number  of  melan- 
choly and  joyous  temperaments,  as  well  as  a  mix- 
ture of  both,  are  met  in  this  as  at  other  times ; 
how  and  in  what  sense  does  the  prevailing  situa- 
tion effect  their  transformation  ? 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  misfortunes 
that  afflict  the  public  also  afflict  the  artist ;  he  is 
one  of  the  flock,  and  he  suffers  as  the  rest  suffer. 
For  example,  if  invasions  of  barbarians  occur, 
and  pests,  famines,  and  calamities  of  all  sorts 
prolonged  for  centuries  and  spread  over  the  entire 
country;  not  only  one,  but  countless  miracles, 
would  be  necessary  to  save  him  harmless  in  the 
general  inundation.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  prob- 
able, and  even  certain,  that  he  will  have  his  share 
of  public  misfortune ;  that  he  will  be  ruined,  beat- 
en, wounded,  and  led  into  captivity  like  others ; 
that  his  wife,  children,  relatives  and  friends  will 
share  the  common  fate,  and  that  he  will  suffer 
and  be  subject  to  fears  on  their  account,  as  well 
as  on  his  own.  During  this  long-continued  flood 
of  personal  misery  he  will,  if  he  is  gay,  become 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  AST.          97 

less  gay,  and,  if  melancholy,  still  more  melan- 
choly. This  is  the  first  effect  of  his  social  me- 
dium. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  artist  is  raised  among 
melancholy  companions,  the  ideas  he  receives  in 
infancy,  with  those  acquired  afterwards,  are  mel- 
ancholy. The  dominant  religion,  accommoda- 
ting itself  to  the  lugubrious  order  of  things, 
teaches  him  that  the  earth  is  a  place  of  exile,  the 
world  a  prison-house,  life  an  evil,  and  that  all 
that  concerns  him  is  to  deserve  to  get  out  of  it 
Philosophy,  forming  its  morality  according  to  the 
lamentable  spectacle  of  man's  degeneracy,  proves 
to  him  that  it  would  have  been  better  for  him  not 
to  have  been  born.  Ordinary  conversation  teems 
with  only  mournful  events,  the  invasion  of  a 
province,  the  destruction  of  some  monument,  the 
oppression  of  the  weak,  and  civil  wars  among  the 
strong.  Daily  observation  reveals  to  him  only 
images  of  discouragement  and  grief,  beggars,  and 
cases  of  starvation,  a  bridge  left  to  decay,  aban- 
doned, crumbling  houses,  fields  going  to  waste, 
and  the  black  walls  of  dwellings  ravaged  by  fire. 
9 


98  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART, 

All  these  impressions  sink  deep  in  his  mind  from 
the  first  year  of  his  life  to  the  last,  incessantly 
aggravating  whatever  melancholy  sentiment 
arises  out  of  his  own  misfortunes. 

They  aggravate  him  so  much  the  more  propor- 
tionately to  the  intensity  of  his  artistic  feeling. 
What  makes  him  an  artist  is  the  practice  of  imi- 
tating the  essential  character  of  things,  the  sal- 
ient points  of  objects ;  other  men  only  see  por- 
tions, while  he  sees  the  whole  and  the  spirit  of 
them.  And  as  in  this  case  the  salient  character- 
istic is  melancholy,  he  accordingly  perceives 
nothing  else.  Moreover,  through  this  excess  of 
imagination  and  this  instinct  of  exaggeration  pe- 
culiar to  artists,  he  amplifies  and  expands  it  tc 
the  utmost ;  he  becomes  impregnated  with  it,  and 
charges  his  work  with  it,  so  that  he  commonly 
sees  and  paints  things  in  much  darker  colors  than 
would  be  employed  by  his  contemporaries. 

It  must  be  added  also  that  he  finds  them  of 
great  assistance  to  him  in  his  work.  You  know 
that  a  man  who  paints  or  writes  remains  not 
alone  face  to  face  with  his  canvas  or  his  writing- 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.         99 

desk  On  the  contrary,  he  goes  out  and  talks  to 
people  and  looks  about  him;  he  listens  to  the 
hints  of  his  friends  or  rivals,  and  seeks  sugges- 
tions in  books  and  from  surrounding  works  of 
art.  An  idea  resembles  a  seed :  if  the  seed  re- 
quires, in  order  to  germinate,  develop  and  bloom, 
the  nourishment  which  water,  air,  sun  and  soil  af- 
ford it,  the  idea,  in  order  to  complete  and  shape 
itself  into  form,  requires  to  be  supplemented  and 
aided  by  other  minds.  Accordingly,  in  these 
epochs  of  melancholy,  what  sort  of  suggestions 
are  other  minds  capable  of  furnishing?  Only 
melancholy  ones,  for  only  on  this  side  do  men 
labor.  As  their  experience  provides  them  only 
with  painful  sensations  and  sentiments,  they  can 
only  note  the  shades  of  difference,  and  record  dis- 
coveries made  on  the  path  of  suffering :  the  heart 
is  the  only  field  of  observation,  and  if  this  is  filled 
with  sorrow,  sorrow  is  all  that  men  contemplate. 
They  are,  therefore,  conscious  only  of  grief,  de- 
jection, chagrin  and  despair.  If  the  artist  de- 
mands instruction  of  them  this  is  all  the  return 
they  can  make.  To  seek  in  them  any  idea  cr  any 


100  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

information  on  the  different  kinds  or  different 
expressions  of  joy  would  be  labor  lost ;  they  can 
only  furnish  what  they  possess.  For  this  reason 
let  him  attempt  to  portray  happiness,  cheerful- 
ness, or  gayety,  and  he  stands  alone,  deprived  of 
all  support,  left  to  his  own  resources,  and  which 
in  an  isolated  man  amounts  to  nothing.  His 
labor  will  likewise  be  stamped  with  mediocrity. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  he  would  paint  melan- 
choly sentiments  his  century  would  come  to  his 
aid.  He  finds  materials  prepared  for  him  by  pre- 
ceding schools ;  he  finds  a  ready-made  art,  con- 
sisting of  known  processes  and  a  beaten  track. 
A  church  ceremony,  a  piece  of  furniture,  a  con- 
versation, suggests  to  him  a  form,  a  color,  a 
phrase,  or  a  character  still  unknown  to  hi™  ;  his 
work,  to  which  millions  of  unknown  co-laborers 
have  contributed,  is  all  the  more  beautiful,  be- 
cause, in  addition  to  his  own  labor  and  his  own 
genius,  it  embodies  the  labor  and  genius  of  sur- 
rounding society,  and  of  generations  that  have 

before  it. 
There  is  still  another  reason,  and  the  strongesi 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       1Q1 

of  all,  which  draws  him  to  melancholy  subjects ; 
it  is  that  his  work,  once  exposed  to  the  public 
eye,  finds  appreciation  only  as  it  expresses  mel- 
ancholy ideas.  Men,  indeed,  can  only  compre- 
hend sentiments  analogous  to  those  they  have 
themselves  experienced.  Other  sentiments,  no 
matter  how  powerfully  expressed,  do  not  affect 
them ;  they  look  with  their  eyes,  but  the  heart  is 
dormant  and  directly  their  eyes  are  averted. 
Imagine  a  man  losing  his  fortune,  country,  chil- 
dren, health  and  liberty,  one  manacled  in  a  dun- 
geon for  twenty  years,  like  Pellico  or  Andryane, 
whose  spirit  by  degrees  is  changed  and  broken, 
and  who  becomes  melancholy  and  a  mystic,  and 
whose  discouragement  is  incurable ;  such  a  man 
entertains  a  horror  of  cheerful  music,  and  has  no 
disposition  to  read  Babelais;  if  you  place  him 
before  the  merry  brutes  of  Rubens,  he  will  turn 
aside  and  place  himself  before  the  canvases  of 
Rembrandt;  he  will  enjoy  only  the  music  of 
Chopin  and  the  poetry  of  Lamartine  or  Heine. 
The  same  thing  happens  to  the  public  and  to  in- 
dividuals ;  their  taste  depends  on  their  situation ; 


102  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AET. 

their  sadness  gives  them  a  taste  for  melancholj 
works ;  cheerful  productions  are  accordingly  re- 
pudiated, and  the  artist  is  censured  or  neglected. 
Now  an  artist  composes  mostly  in  order  to  obtain 
appreciation  and  applause;  this  is  his  ruling 
passion.  Hence,  therefore,  besides  other  causes, 
his  ruling  passion,  added  to  the  pressure  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  leads  him,  pushes  him,  and  con- 
stantly brings  him  back  to  the  expression  of 
melancholy,  and  barring  the  ways  to  him  which 
would  lead  him  to  the  portrayal  of  gayety  and 
happiness. 

Through  this  series  of  obstacles  every  passage 
would  be  closed  for  works  of  art  manifesting  joy. 
If  an  artist  overcomes  one  obstacle,  he  is  arrested 
by  others.  If  he  meets  with  joyous  natures  he 
will  be  saddened  by  their  personal  misfortunes. 
Education  and  current  conversation  fill  their 
minds  with  gloomy  ideas.  The  artists'  faculties 
by  which  they  detach  and  amplify  the  leading 
traits  of  objects,  will  find  for  their  exercise  none 
but  melancholy  ones.  The  experience  and  laboi 
of  others  provide  them  with  suggestions  and  nt€ 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       103 

oo-operative  only  in  melancholy  subjects.  Fi- 
nally, the  earnest  and  decisive  will  of  the  public 
allows  them  to  produce  only  melancholy  subjects. 
Consequently,  the  class  of  artists  and  their  works 
suitable  for  the  expression  of  gayety  and  joyous- 
ness  disappear,  or  end  by  becoming  reduced  to 
almost  nothing. 

Consider,  now,  the  opposite  case,  that  of  a 
general  condition  of  cheerfulness.  That  occurs 
in  renaissance  epochs,  when  order,  wealth,  popu- 
lation, comfort,  prosperity,  and  useful  and  beau- 
tiful discoveries  are  constantly  increasing.  By 
reversing  its  terms  the  analysis  we  have  just 
made  is  applicable  word  for  word;  the  same 
process  of  reasoning  proves  that  the  works  of  art 
of  such  a  period  will  all,  more  or  less,  express  a 
joyous  character. 

Consider,  now,  an  intermediary  case,  that  is 
to  say,  a  commingling  of  this  or  that  phase  of 
joy  or  sadness,  which  is  the  ordinary  condition  of 
things.  By  a  proper  modification  of  terms,  the 
analysis  is  equally  pertinent ;  the  same  reasoning 
demonstrates  that  works  of  art  express  cone- 


1 04  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

spending  combinations,  and  a  corresponding  spe- 
cies of  joy  and  melancholy. 

Let  us  conclude,  therefore,  that  in  every  sim- 
ple or  complex  state,  the  social  medium,  that  is 
to  say,  the  general  state  of  mind  and  manners, 
determines  the  species  of  works  of  art  in  suffer- 
ing only  those  which  are  in  harmony  with  it,  and 
in  suppressing  other  species,  through  a  series  oi 
obstacles  interposed,  and  a  series  of  attacks  re- 
newed, at  every  step  of  their  development. 


IV. 

LET  us  now  leave  supposed  cases,  simplified  to 
give  clearness  to  the  exposition,  and  take  np 
real  ones.  You  will  see  in  glancing  at  the  most 
important  of  a  historical  series,  a  verification  of 
the  law.  I  will  select  four  which  are  the  four 
great  cycles  of  European  civilization — Greek  and 
Koman  antiquity,  the  feudal  and  Christian  mid- 
dle ages,  the  well-regulated  aristocratic  monarch- 
ies of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  the  industrial 
democracies  of  the  present  day,  directed  by  the 
sciences.  Each  of  these  periods  has  its  own  art, 
or  some  department  of  art  peculiar  to  it,  either 
sculpture,  architecture,  the  drama  or  music,  or 
some  determined  phase  of  each  of  these  great 
arts ;  in  every  case  a  distinct,  singularly  rich  and 
complete  vegetation,  which,  in  its  leading  feat- 
ures, reflects  the  principal  traits  of  the  art  and 
the  nation.  Let  us,  accordingly,  consider  in  turn 
the  different  soils,  and  we  shall  see  that  all  pr> 
duce  different  flowers. 


V. 

ABOUT  three  thousand  years  ago  there  ap- 
peared on  the  shores  and  islands  of  the  .2EgeaE 
Sea  a  remarkably  handsome,  intelligent  race, 
viewing  life  in  quite  a  new  way.  It  did  not  allow 
itself  to  be  absorbed  by  a  great  religious  concep- 
tion like  the  Hindoos  and  Egyptians,  nor  by  a 
great  social  organization  like  the  Assyrians  and 
Persians,  nor  by  great  industrial  and  commer- 
cial usages  after  the  fashion  of  Phoenicians  and 
Carthagenians.  Instead  of  a  theocracy  and  a 
hierarchy  of  caste,  and  instead  of  a  monarchy  and 
a  hierarchy  of  functionaries  and  of  great  trading 
and  commercial  establishments,  the  men  of  that 
race  had  an  invention  of  their  own  called  the 
city,  which  city,  in  sending  forth  branches,  gave 
birth  to  others  of  the  same  description.  One  of 
these,  Miletus,  produced  three  hundred  towns 
and  colonized  the  entire  coast  of  the  Black  Sea. 
Others  did  the  same,  the  Mediterranean  Sea  be- 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       JQ7 

ing  encircled  with  a  garland  of  flourishing  cities, 
extending  from  Gyrene  to  Marseilles,  along  the 
golfs  and  promontories  of  Spain,  Italy,  Greece, 
Asia  Minor  and  Africa. 

What  was  the  life  of  this  city?*  A  citizen 
performed  but  little  manual  labor ;  he  was  gener- 
ally supported  by  his  subjects  and  tributaries, 
and  always  served  by  slaves.  The  poorest  man 
in  the  place  had  one  to  keep  house  for  him. 
Athens  counted  four  for  each  citizen ;  and  lesser 
cities,  like  ^Bgina  and  Corinth,  possessed  from 
four  to  five  hundred  thousand.  Servants,  of 
course,  abounded.  The  citizen,  however,  needed 
but  little  help.  Like  all  the  finely-built  races  of 
the  south,  he  was  abstemious,  a  meal  consisting 
of  three  or  four  olives,  a  bit  of  garlic,  and  the 
head  of  a  fish.t  His  wardrobe  consisted  of  san- 
dals, a  small  shirt,  and  a  large  mantle,  like  that 
of  a  shepherd.  His  house  was  a  narrow,  frail,  ill- 
constructed  tenement,  into  which  robbers  could 

•  Grotc,  History  of  Greecv—  Boeckh,  Political  Economy  of  tkj 
Atktniatu— Wallon,  Slavery  in  Antiquity. 

\  The  Frogs  of  Aristophanes ;  the  Cock  of  Locian. 


108  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AET. 

penetrate  by  piercing  the  walls,*  and  which  he 
only  used  for  sleeping ;  a  bed  and  two  or  three 
beautiful  vases  were  the  principal  articles  of  fur- 
niture. The  citizen  had  few  wants,  and  he  passed 
the  day  in  the  open  air. 

How  did  he  dispose  of  his  leisure?  Serving 
neither  king  nor  priest,  he  was,  as  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  free  and  sovereign  in  the  city.  He 
elected  his  own  pontiffs  and  magistrates,  and  he 
himself,  in  turn,  could  be  elected  to  sacerdotal 
and  other  offices  ;  whether  blacksmith  or  currier, 
he  judged  the  most  important  political  cases  in 
the  tribunals,  and  decided  the  gravest  of  affairs 
of  state  in  the  assemblies ;  his  occupation  consist- 
ed, substantially,  of  public  business  and  war.  To 
be  a  politician  and  a  soldier  was  a  part  of  his 
duty;  other  pursuits  were  of  little  importance  to 
him;  the  attention  of  a  free  man,  in  his  opinion, 
ought  to  be  applied  to  these  two  employments. 
And  he  was  right,  for,  at  that  time,  human  life  was 
not  protected  as  it  is  in  ours ;  human  societies  had 
not  acquired  the  stability  which  they  now  have 

*  Their  proper  name  was  wall-piercers. 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       l()fl 

Most  of  these  cities,  built  and  scattered  along  the 
Mediterranean  shores,  were  surrounded  by  bar- 
barians eager  to  prey  upon  them ;  the  citizen  was 
obliged  to  be  under  arms,  like  the  European  of 
the  present  day  in  Japan  and  in  New  Zealand ;  if 
not,  Gauls,  Libyans,  Samnites  and  Bithynians 
would  soon  have  pitched  their  camps  amid  the 
ruins  of  battered  walls  and  devastated  temples. 
Besides  all  this,  these  cities  were  inimical  to  each 
other.  The  rights  of  war  were  atrocious ;  a  van- 
quished city  was  often  devoted  to  destruction ;  a 
wealthy  noted  man  might  any  day  see  his  dwell- 
ing in  ashes,  his  property  pillaged,  his  wife  and 
daughters  sold  to  recruit  places  of  prostitution ; 
he  himself,  and  his  sons,  enslaved,  would  be 
buried  hi  mines,  or  compelled  by  the  lash  to  turn 
a  mill.  With  such  perils  before  him  it  is  natural 
for  a  man  to  be  interested  in  affairs  of  state,  and 
be  qualified  for  battle ;  he  has  to  become  a  poli- 
tician under  penalty  of  death.  Ambition,  how- 
ever, and  love  of  glory  are  equal  stimulants. 
Every  city  aspired  to  reduce  or  humble  every 
other  city,  to  acquire  vassals,  to  conquer  or  tc 
10 


THE  PhlLOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

raake  profitable  the  persons  of  others.*  The  cifc 
izen  passed  his  life  in  the  public  thoroughfares 
discussing  the  best  means  for  preserving  and 
aggrandizing  his  city,  canvassing  its  alliances, 
treaties,  laws  and  constitution ;  now  listening  to 
orators,  and  again  acting  as  one  himself  up  to  the 
very  moment  of  going  aboard  his  vessel  in  order 
to  wage  war  in  Thrace  or  in  Egypt,  against  other 
Greeks,  against  the  barbarians,  or  against  the 
Great  King. 

To  reach  this  point,  they  had  systematized  a 
peculiar  discipline.  As  there  were  no  industrial 
facilities  in  those  days,  the  machinery  of  war  was 
unknown.  "War  was  a  combat  between  man  and 
man ;  consequently,  the  essential  thing  to  insure 
victory  was  not  to  transform  soldiers  into  mar- 
shaled automatons,  as  in  our  day,  but  to  render 
each  soldier  the  most  resistant,  the  strongest,  and 
the  most  agile  body  possible ;  in  short,  a  highly- 
tempered  gladiator,  capable  of  the  utmost  phys- 

*  Thucydides,  Book  I.  See  the  divers  expeditions  of  th# 
Athenians  between  the  peace  cf  Cimon  and  the  Peloponnesiaz, 


PRODUCTION  CF  THE  Wb&K  Of  AKT.       \\\ 

ical  endurance  To  this  end,  Sparta  which,  about 
the  eighth  century,  gave  the  example  and  the  im- 
pulse to  all  Greece,  had  a  very  complicated  and 
no  less  efficacious  military  system.  She  herself 
was  a  camp  without  walls,  situated,  like  our 
camps  in  Kabyle,  amidst  enemies  and  a  con- 
quered people,  wholly  military,  and  devoted  to 
attack  and  self-defense.  In  order  to  have  a  per- 
fect military,  it  was  necessary  to  have  a  splendid 
race ;  it  was  managed  as  in  stock-breeding.  All 
deformed  children  were  deprived  of  life.  The 
law,  moreover,  prescribed  the  age  for  marriage 
and  selected  the  most  suitable  time  and  circum- 
stances for  proper  breeding.  An  old  man  hap- 
pening to  have  a  young  wife  was  obliged  to  give 
her  over  to  a  young  man  in  order  to  have  a  good 
healthy  offspring.  A  middle-aged  man  having  a 
friend  whose  beauty  and  character  he  admired, 
might  give  him  the  use  of  his  wife.*  After  hav- 
ing constituted  the  race,  they  shaped  the  individ- 
ual. Young  men  were  enrolled,  drilled,  and  ac- 
austomed  to  live  in  common  like  a  troop  of  cr  0 

•  Xenophon.     The  Lacedemonian  Republic,  parsim. 


112  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  ART. 

dren.  They  were  divided  into  two  rival  bands, 
who  inspected  each  other,  and  fought  together 
with  their  feet  and  their  fists.  They  slept  in  the 
open  air,  bathed  in  the  cool  waters  of  the  Euro- 
tas,  went  marauding,  ate  sparingly,  fast  and  bad- 
ly, rested  on  beds  of  rushes,  drank  nothing  but 
water,  and  endured  every  inclemency  of  climate. 
Young  girls  exercised  in  the  same  manner,  and 
the  matured  were  restricted  to  almost  the  same 
routine.  The  rigor  of  this  antique  discipline  was 
undoubtedly  less,  or  was  mitigated,  in  other  cit- 
ies ;  nevertheless,  with  these  mitigations,  the 
same  road  conducted  to  the  same  end.  Young 
people  passed  the  greater  part  of  the  day  in  the 
gymnasia,  wrestling,  jumping,  boxing,  racing, 
pitching  quoits ;  fortifying  and  rendering  supple 
their  naked  muscles.  It  was  their  aim  to  pro- 
duce strong,  robust  bodies,  the  most  beautiful 
and  the  nimblest  possible,  and  no  system  of  edu- 
cation ever  succeeded  better  in  obtaining  them.* 
These  peculiar  customs  of  the  Greeks  gave 
birth  to  peculiar  ideas.  In  their  eyes  the  idea? 

•  The  Dialogues  of  Plato.     The  Clouds  of  Aristophanes. 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OPART.       H3 

man  was  not  the  man  of  thought,  or  a  man  of 
delicate  sensibility,  but  the  naked  man,  the  man 
of  a  fine  stock  and  growth,  well-proportioned,  ac- 
tive and  accomplished  in  all  physical  exercises. 
This  mode  of  thinking  was  manifested  by  a  vari- 
ety of  traits.  In  the  first  place,  whilst  the  Ca- 
nans  and  the  Lydians  around  them,  and  their 
barbarian  neighbors  generally,  were  ashamed  to 
appear  naked,  they  stripped  without  embarrass- 
ment in  order  to  wrestle  and  run  races.*  The 
young  girls  of  Sparta  were  in  the  habit  of  exer- 
cising almost  naked.  You  will  perceive  that 
gymnastic  exercises  had  suppressed,  or  at  least 
transformed,  modesty.  In  the  second  place,  the 
great  national  festivals  of  the  Greeks,  the  Olym- 
pian, Pythian,  and  Nemean  games,  consisted  of  a 
display  and  triumph  of  the  naked  figure.  The 
youth  of  the  first  families  resorted  to  these  from 
all  parts  of  Greece,  and  from  the  remotest  Gre- 
cian colonies.  They  prepared  themselves  for 
them  a  long  time  beforehand  by  special  training 

*  The  Lacedemonians  adopted  this  autom  al-out  the   14^1 
Olympiad.— Plato. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AH T. 

and  tne  severest  labor,  and  there,  under  the  eyes- 
and  applause  of  the  whole  nation,  stripped  of 
their  clothing,  they  wrestled,  boxed,  pitched 
quoits,  and  raced  on  foot  or  in  the  chariot.  Vic- 
tories of  this  class,  which  we  of  the  present  day 
leave  to  a  Hercules  in  a  circus,  they  regarded  as 
of  the  first  importance.  The  victorious  athlete 
in  the  foot-race  gave  his  name  to  the  Olympiad ; 
his  praises  were  chanted  by  the  greatest  poets  • 
Pindar,  the  most  illustrious  lyric  poet  of  antiq- 
uity, sang  only  of  chariot  races.  On  returning 
to  his  native  city  the  victorious  athlete  was  re- 
ceived in  triumph,  and  his  strength  and  agility 
became  the  pride  of  the  place.  One  of  these, 
Milo  of  Crotona,  who  was  invincible  at  wrestling, 
was  chosen  general,  and  led  his  fellow-citizens  to 
battle,  clad  in  a  lion's  skin  and  armed  with  a  club 
like  Hercules,  to  whom  he  was  compared.  It  is 
related  that  a  certain  Diagoras  saw  his  two  sons 
crowned  on  the  same  day,  and  was  carried  around 
by  them  in  triumph  before  the  assembled  multi- 
tude Deeming  a  like  happiness  too  great  foi 
one  mortal,  the  people  cried  out  to  him,  "Din 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 

Diagoras,  for  thou  canst  not  now  become  a  god ! " 
Diagoras,  suffocated  with  emotion,  did  indeed 
expire  in  the  arms  of  his  children.  In  his  eyes, 
as  in  the  eyes  of  all  Greece,  to  see  his  sons  pos- 
sessing the  most  vigorous  fists  and  the  nimblest 
legs  was  the  height  of  terrestrial  bliss.  Whether 
this  be  truth  or  legend,  such  a  judgment  proves 
the  excessive  degree  of  admiration  entertained  by 
the  Greeks  for  the  perfection  of  the  human  form. 
On  this  account  they  were  not  afraid  to  expose 
it  before  the  gods  on  solemn  occasions.  They 
had  a  formal  system  of  attitudes  and  actions, 
called  orcJiestriqw,  which  regulated  and  taught 
them  beautiful  postures  of  the  sacred  dances. 
After  the  battle  of  Salamis  the  tragic  poet  Soph- 
ocles, then  fifteen  years  old,  and  celebrated  for 
his  beauty,  stripped  himself  of  his  clothing  in 
order  to  dance  and  chant  the  psean  before  the 
trophy.  One  hundred  years  later,  Alexander,  on 
passing  through  Asia  Minor  to  contend  with  Da- 
rins,  cast  aside  his  garments,  along  with  his  com- 
panions, for  the  purpose  of  honoring  the  tomb  of 
Achilles  with  races.  But  the  Greeks  weuc  still 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

further;  they  considered  the  perfection  of  th« 
human  form  as  attesting  divinity.  In  a  town  in 
Sicily  a  young  man  of  extraordinary  beauty  was 
worshiped,  and  after  death,  altars  were  erected 
in  his  honor.*  In  Homer,  which  is  the  Grecian 
Bible,  you  will  find  everywhere  that  the  gods 
had  a  human  body  which  the  flesh-lance  could 
pierce,  flowing  red  blood,  instincts,  passions  and 
pleasures  similar  in  every  respect  to  our  own, 
and  to  such  an  extent  that  heroes  become  the 
lovers  of  goddesses,  and  gods  beget  children  of 
mortal  mothers.  Between  Olympus  and  the 
earth  there  is  no  abyss ;  they  descend  from,  and 
we  ascend  to,  it ;  if  they  surpass  us,  it  is  because 
they  are  exempt  from  death,  because  their 
wounds  heal  quicker,  and  they  are  stronger, 
handsomer  and  happier  than  we.  In  other  re- 
spects, they  eat,  drink  and  quarrel  as  we  do,  aD 
enjoying  the  same  senses,  and  employing  the 
game  corporeal  functions.  Greece  has  so  well 
worked  out  its  model  of  the  beautiful  humar 
animal  that  it  has  made  its  idol  of  it,  and  gloii 

*  Herodotus. 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.        \\  ~t 

ues  it  on  earth,  by  making  a  divinity  of  it  k 
heaven. 

Out  of  this  conception  statuary  is  born,  and  we 
can  mark  every  moment  of  its  growth.  On  the 
one  hand,  an  athlete,  once  crowned,  was  entitled 
to  a  statue ;  crowned  a  third  time,  he  was  awarded 
an  iconical  statue — that  is  to  say,  an  effigy  bear- 
ing his  portrait.  On  the  other  hand,  the  gods 
being  only  human  forms,  more  serene  and  more 
perfect  than  others,  it  was  natural  to  represent 
them  by  statues.  For  that  purpose  there  is  no 
need  of  a  forced  dogma.  The  marble  or  bronze 
effigy  is  not  an  allegory,  but  an  exact  image ;  it 
does  not  give  to  the  god  muscles,  bones,  and  a 
heavy  covering  which  it  has  not;  it  represents 
the  re-clothing  of  flesh  which  covers  it,  and  the 
living  form  which  is  its  substance.  It  suffices,  in 
order  to  be  a  truthful  portrait,  that  it  should  be 
the  most  beautiful,  and  reproduce  the  immortal 
calm  by  which  the  god  is  exalted  above  mortals. 

The  statue  is  now  blocked  out — is  the  sculptor 
qualified  to  produce  it  ?  Dwell  a  moment  on  his 
preparation.  Men  in  those  days  studied  th<- 


body  naked  and  in  action,  in  the  baths,  in  tht 
gymnasia,  in  the  sacred  dances  and  at  the  public 
games ;  they  observed  and  preferred  such  forms 
and  such  attitudes  as  denoted  vigor,  health,  and 
activity ;  they  labored  with  all  their  might  to  im- 
press on  it  these  forms  and  to  shape  it  to  these 
attitudes.  For  three  or  four  hundred  years  they 
were  thus  correcting,  purifying,  developing  their 
idea  of  physical  beauty.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
they  finally  discovered  the  ideal  type  of  the  hu- 
man form.  We  of  the  present  day  that  are  fa- 
miliar with  it  owe  our  knowledge  of  it  to  them. 
When  Nicholas  of  Pisa  and  other  early  sculptors 
at  the  end  of  the  Gothic  period  abandoned  the 
meagre,  bony,  and  ugly  forms  of  hieratic  tradi- 
tion, it  was  because  they  took  an  example  from 
Greek  bas-reliefs,  preserved  or  exhumed ;  and  if 
to-day,  forgetting  our  distorted  and  defective 
bodies,  as  plebeians  or  thinkers,  we  wish  to  find 
again  some  type  of  the  perfect  form,  it  is  in  these 
statues,  monuments  of  a  noble,  unoccupied,  gym- 
nastic life,  that  we  must  seek  our  instruction. 
Not  only  the  form  of  it  is  perfect,  but  again/ 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 

which  is  unique,  it  suffices  for  the  thought  of  the 
artist.  The  Greeks,  having  assigned  to  the  body 
a  dignity  of  its  own,  were  not  tempted,  like  the 
moderns,  to  subordinate  it  to  the  head.  A  chest 
breathing  healthily,  a  trunk  solidly  resting  on  the 
thighs,  a  nervous  supple  leg  impelling  the  body 
forward  with  ease ;  they  did  not  occupy  them- 
selves solely  with  the  breadth  of  a  thoughtful 
forehead,  with  the  frown  of  an  irritated  brow,  or 
the  turn  of  a  sarcastic  lip.  They  could  limit 
themselves  to  the  conditions  of  perfect  statuary, 
which  leaves  the  eye  without  an  iris,  and  the  head 
without  expression ;  which  prefers  quiet  person- 
ages, or  those  occupied  by  insignificant  action ; 
which  commonly  employs  only  a  uniform  tint, 
either  of  marble  or  of  bronze ;  which  leaves  the 
picturesque  to  painting,  and  abandons  dramatic 
interest  to  literature ;  which,  confined  to,  but  en- 
nobled by,  the  nature  of  its  materials  and  its  lim- 
ited domain,  avoids  the  representation  of  details, 
of  physiognomy,  of  the  casualties  of  human  agi- 
tn.tion,  in  order  to  detach  the  pure  and  abstract 
form,  and  thus  illuminate  the  sanctuaries  with 


120  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  A&T. 

motionless,  peaceful,  august  effigies  in  which  hu* 
man  nature  recognized  its  heroes  and  its  gods. 

Statuary,  accordingly,  is  the  central  art  of 
Greece;  other  arts  are  related  to  it,  accompany 
it,  or  imitate  it.  No  other  art  has  so  well  ex- 
pressed the  national  life ;  no  other  was  so  culti- 
vated or  so  popular.  In  the  hundred  small  tem- 
ples around  Delphi,  in  which  the  treasures  of  the 
cities  were  kept,  "a  whole  world  of  marble,  gold, 
silver,  brass,  and  bronze,  twenty  different  bronzes, 
and  of  all  tints,  thousands  of  glorified  dead  in  ir- 
regular groups,  seated  and  standing,  radiated  the 
veritable  subjects  of  the  god  of  light."  *  When 
Borne,  at  a  later  day,  despoiled  the  Greek  world 
of  its  treasures,  this  vast  city  possessed  a  popula- 
tion of  statues  almost  equal  to  that  of  its  living 
inhabitants.  At  the  present  time,  after  so  many 
centuries  and  such  devastation,  it  is  estimated 
that  more  than  sixty  thousand  statues  have  been 
discovered  at  Borne  and  in  its  surrounding  Cam- 
pagna.  A  like  harvest  of  sculpture  has  never 
been  seen,  such  a  prodigious  abundance  of 

*  Michelet. 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.        J21 

era, — a  display  of  flowers  so  perfect,  a  growth  so 
natural,  so  continuous  and  varied.  You  have 
just  seen  the  cause  of  it,  in  digging  up  the  earth 
layer  by  layer,  and  in  observing  that  all  the  foun- 
dations of  the  human  soil,  institutions,  manners, 
ideas,  have  contributed  to  sustain  it 

11 


VL 

Tais  military  organization  common  to  all  the 
cities  of  antiquity  at  length  had  its  effect, — a  sad 
effect.  War  being  the  natural  condition  of 
things,  the  weak  were  overpowered  by  the  strong, 
and,  more  than  once,  one  might  have  seen  formed 
states  of  considerable  magnitude  under  the  con- 
trol or  tyranny  of  a  victorious  or  dominant  city. 
Finally  one  arose,  Rome,  which,  possessing 
greater  energy,  patience,  and  sMll,  more  capable 
of  subordination  and  command,  of  consecutive 
views  and  practical  calculations,  attained,  after 
seven  hundred  years  of  effort,  in  incorporating 
under  her  dominion  the  entire  basin  of  the  Med- 
iterranean and  many  great  outlying  countries. 
To  gain  this  point  she  submitted  to  military  dis- 
cipline, and,  like  a  fruit  springing  from  its  germ, 
a  military  despotism  was  the  issue.  Thus  was 
the  Empire  formed.  Towards  the  first  century 
of  our  era,  the  world,  organized  under  a  regular 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.        123 

monarchy,  seemed  at  last  to  have  attained  to 
order  and  tranquillity.  It  issued  only  in  a  de- 
cline. In  the  horrible  destruction  of  conquest 
cities  perished  by  hundreds  and  men  by  millions. 
During  an  entire  century  the  conquerors  them- 
selves massacred  each  other,  and  the  civilized 
world  having  lost  its  free  men,  lost  the  half  of  its 
inhabitants.*  Citizens,  converted  into  subjects, 
and  no  longer  pursuing  noble  ends,  abandoned 
themselves  to  indolence  and  luxury,  refused  to 
marry  and  to  have  children.  Machinery  being 
unknown,  and  the  hand  the  only  instrument  of 
labor,  the  slaves,  whose  lot  it  was  to  provide  for 
the  pleasures,  pomp,  and  refinements  of  society, 
disappeared  under  a  burden  too  heavy  for  them 
to  bear.  At  the  expiration  of  four  hundred  years 
the  enervated,  depopulated  empire  had  not  suf- 
ficient men  or  energy  to  repel  the  barbarians. 
The  barbarous  wave  entered,  sweeping  away  the 
dykes ;  after  the  first,  a  second,  then  a  third,  and 
so  on  for  a  period  of  five  hundred  years.  The 
evils  they  inflicted  cannot  be  described :  people 

'  Rome,  thirty  yean  B.  C.,  by  Victor  Duruy. 


124  THE  PHILOSOPHY  or  ART. 

exterminated,  monuments  destroyed,  fields  dev- 
astated, and  cities  burnt ;  industry,  the  fine  arts, 
and  the  sciences  mutilated,  degraded,  forgotten , 
fear,  ignorance,  and  brutality  spread  everywhere 
and  established.  They  were  complete  savages, 
similar  to  the  Hurons  and  Iroquois  suddenly  en- 
camped in  the  midst  of  a  cultivated  and  thinking 
world  like  ours.  Imagine  a  herd  of  wild  bulls 
let  loose  amid  the  furniture  and  decorations  of  a 
palace,  and  after  this  another  herd,  so  that  the 
ruins  left  by  the  first  perished  under  the  hoofs  of 
the  second,  and,  scarcely  installed  in  disorder, 
each  troop  of  brutes  had  to  arouse  itself  in  order 
to  battle  with  its  horns  a  bellowing,  insatiable 
troop  of  invaders.  When  at  last,  in  the  tenth 
century,  the  last  horde  had  made  its  lair  and 
glutted  itself,  men  seemed  to  be  in  no  better  con- 
dition. The  barbarian  chiefs  becoming  feudal 
barons,  fought  amongst  themselves,  pillaging 
peasants  and  burning  their  crops,  robbing  the 
merchants,  and  wantonly  robbing  and  maltreat- 
ing their  miserable  serfs.  The  land  remained 
waste,  and  provisions  became  scarce.  In  the 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  AET.       125 

eleventh  century  forty  out  of  seventy  years  were 
years  of  famine.  A  monk,  Baonl  Glaber,  relates 
that  it  got  to  be  common  to  eat  human  flesh ;  a 
butcher  was  burnt  alive  for  exposing  it  for  sale 
in  his  stall.  Add  to  this  universal  poverty  and 
filth,  and  a  total  neglect  of  the  simplest  of  hy- 
gienic principles,  and  you  can  well  understand 
how  leprosy,  pests,  and  epidemics,  becoming  ac- 
climated, raged  as  if  upon  their  native  soil. 
People  degenerated  to  the  condition  of  the  an- 
thropophagi of  New  Zealand,  to  the  ignoble  bru- 
tality of  the  Papuans  and  Caledonians,  to  the 
lowest  depths  of  the  human  cesspool,  seeing  that 
reminiscences  of  the  past  trenched  on  the  misery 
of  the  present,  and  since  some  t.hinTdng  heads, 
still  reading  the  ancient  language  felt  in  a  con- 
fused way  the  immensity  of  the  fall,  the  whole 
depth  of  the  abyss  into  which  the  human  species 
had  been  engulfed  for  a  thousand  years. 

Yon  may  divine  the  sentiments  which  such  a 
condition  of  things,  so  extreme  and  so  lasting, 
implanted  in  people's  breasts.  At  first  there  was 
weakness,  disgust  of  life,  and  the  deepest 


126  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OS  ALT. 

choly ;  "the  world,"  said  a  writer  of  that  day,  "is 
nothing  but  an  abyss  of  vice  and  immodesty." 
Life  seemed  a  foretaste  of  hell.  Many  withdrew 
from  it,  and  not  alone  the  poor,  the  feeble,  and 
women,  but  sovereign  lords,  and  even  kings; 
such  as  possessed  delicate  and  noble  natures  pre- 
ferred the  tranquileity  and  monotony  of  the  clois- 
ter. On  the  approach  of  the  year  one  thousand  a 
general  belief  in  the  extinction  of  the  world  pre- 
vailed, and  many,  seized  with  fright,  made  over 
their  property  to  churches  and  convents.  On  the 
other  hand,  and  coupled  with  this  terror  and  de- 
spondency, there  arose  an  extraordinary  degree 
of  nervous  exaltation.  When  men  are  very  mis- 
erable they  become  excitable,  like  invalids  and 
prisoners;  their  sensibility  increases,  and  ac- 
quires a  feminine  delicacy;  their  heart  is  filled 
with  caprices,  agitations  and  despondency,  ex- 
cesses and  effusions  from  which  they  are  free  in 
a  healthy  state.  They  depart  from  moderate 
sentiments  which  alone  can  maintain  continuous 
masculine  action.  They  indulge  in  reverie,  burst 
into  tears,  sink  down  on  thoir  knees,  become  in- 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.        127 

capable  of  providing  for  themselves,  imagine  in- 
finite sweet  and  tender  transports,  yearning  to 
diffuse  the  excessive  refinements  and  enthusiasm 
of  their  overwrought  intemperate  imaginations , 
in  short,  they  are  prone  to  love.  Hence,  we  see 
them  developed  with  an  enormous  exaggeration, 
a  passion  unknown  to  the  stern  and  virile  souls 
of  antiquity,  namely,  the  chivalric  mystic  love  of 
the  middle  ages.  The  calm  rational  love  of  wed- 
lock was  subordinated  to  the  ecstatic  and  unruly 
love  encountered  outside  of  wedlock.  Its  sub- 
tleties were  carefully  defined  and  embodied  in 
the  maxims  of  tribunals  presided  over  by  ladies. 
It  was  decreed  there  that  "love  could  not  exist 
between  spouses,"  and  that  "love  could  refuse 
nothing  to  love."*  "Woman  was  no  longer  con- 
sidered as  flesh  and  blood  like  man,  but  was  con- 
verted into  a  divinity ;  a  man  was  only  too  well 
compensated  in  the  privilege  of  adoring  and  serv- 
ing her.  Human  love  was  regarded  as  a  celestial 
sentiment  leading  to  divine  love  and  confounded 
with  it.  Poets  transformed  their  mistresses  into 

*  Andr£  le  Chapelain. 


128  Z1-2^  PHU.OSOPHY  OF  ABT. 

supernatural  virtue,  and  implored  them  to  guide 
them  through  the  empyrean  to  the  tabernacle  of 
God.  You  can  easily  appreciate  the  hold  the 
Christian  faith  derived  from  such  sentiments. 
Disgust  for  the  world,  a  tendency  to  ecstasy,  ha- 
bitual despair  and  infinite  craving  for  tender 
sympathy,  naturally  impelled  men  to  a  doctrine 
representing  the  earth  as  a  vale  of  tears,  the 
present  life  a  period  of  trial,  rapturous  union 
with  the  Divinity  as  supreme  happiness,  and  the 
love  of  God  as  the  first  of  duties.  Morbid  or 
trembling  sensibility  found  its  support  in  the  in- 
finitude of  terror  and  of  hope,  in  pictures  of 
flaming  pits  and  eternal  perdition,  and  in  con- 
ceptions of  a  radiant  paradise  and  of  ineffable 
bliss.  Thus  supported,  Christianity  ruled  all 
souls,  inspired  art,  and  gave  employment  to  ar- 
tists. "Society,"  says  a  contemporary,  "divested 
itself  of  its  old  rags  in  order  to  clothe  its 
churches  in  robes  of  whiteness."  Gothic  archi- 
tecture accordingly  made  its  appearance. 

Let  us  observe  the  growth  of  the  new  Gothic 
edifice.    In  opposition  to  the  religions  of  antiq- 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 

oiiy,  wliich  were  all  local,  belonging  to  castes  or 
to  families,  Christianity  is  a  universal  religion 
which  appeals  to  the  multitude,  and  summons  all 
men  to  salvation.  It  was  necessary  accordingly 
for  this  new  edifice  to  be  veiy  large  and  capable 
of  containing  the  entire  population  of  any  one 
city  or  district — the  women,  the  children,  the 
serfs,  the  artisans,  and  the  poor  as  well  as  the 
nobles  and  sovereigns.  The  small  cetta  which 
contains  the  statue  of  the  Greek  god,  and  the 
portico  where  the  procession  of  free  citizens  was 
displayed,  were  not  sufficient  for  this  immense 
crowd.  An  enormous  vault  was  required,  lofty 
naves  multiplied  and  crossed  by  others,  and 
measureless  arches  and  colossal  columns ;  gener- 
ations of  workmen  flocked  in  crowds  for  centuries 
to  labor  here  for  the  salvation  of  their  souls,  dis- 
placing mountains  before  the  monument  could 
be  completed. 

The  men  who  enter  here  have  sorrowing  souls, 
and  the  ideas  they  come  in  quest  of  are  mournful. 
They  meditate  on  this  miserable  life,  so  troubled 
and  confined  by  such  an  abyss,  on  hell  and  it* 


130  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

punishments,  endless,  measureless  and  unintei- 
mittent,  on  the  sufferings  and  passion  of  Christ 
crucified,  and  those  of  persecuted  and  tortured 
saints  and  martyrs.  Listening  to  such  religious 
teaching,  and  under  the  burden  of  their  own 
fears,  they  could  ill  accommodate  themselves  to 
the  simple  beauty  and  joyous  effect  of  pure  light  -, 
the  clear  and  healthy  light  of  day  is  accordingly 
excluded ;  the  interior  of  the  edifice  remains  sub- 
ject to  cold  and  lugubrious  shadow;  light  only 
comes  in  transformed  by  stained  glass  into  pur- 
ple and  crimson  tints,  into  the  splendors  of  topaz 
and  amethyst,  into  the  mystic  gleams  of  precious 
stones,  into  strange  illuminations,  seeming  to  af- 
ford glimpses  of  paradise. 

Delicate  over-excited  imaginations  like  these 
are  not  content  with  simple  architectural  forms. 
And  first,  form  in  itself  is  not  sufficient  to  inter- 
est them.  It  must  be  a  symbol  of  and  designate 
some  august  mystery.  The  edifice  with  its  trans- 
verse naves  represents  the  cross  on  which  Christ 
died ;  its  circular  window  with  its  brilliant  petals 
figures  the  rose  of  eternity,  the  leaves  of  which 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       1^[ 

are  redeemed  souls;  all  the  dimensions  of  ite 
parts  correspond  to  sacred  numbers.  Again, 
these  forms  in  their  richness,  strangeness,  bold- 
ness, delicacy  and  immensity,  harmonize  with  the 
intemperance  and  curiosity  of  a  morbid  fancy. 
Vivid  sensations — manifold,  changing,  bizarre 
and  extreme — are  necessary  to  such  souls.  They 
reject  the  column,  the  horizontal  and  transverse 
beams,  the  round  arch,  in  short,  the  solid  con- 
struction, balanced  proportions,  and  beautiful 
simplicity  of  antique  architecture;  they  do  not 
sympathize  with  those  noble  creations  that  seem 
to  have  been  born  without  pain  and  to  last  with- 
out effort,  which  attain  to  beauty  the  same  time 
as  to  life,  and  the  finished  excellence  of  which 
needs  neither  addition  nor  ornament. 

They  adopt  for  type,  not  the  plain  half-circle 
of  the  arcade,  or  the  simple  angle  formed  by  the 
column  and  the  architrave,  but  the  complicated 
union  of  two  curves  intersected  by  each  other, 
forming  the  ogive.  They  aspire  to  the  gigantic, 
covering  square  acres  of  ground  with  piles  of 
stone,  binding  pillars  together  in  monstrous  ool- 


132  TnE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AB1. 

umns,  suspending  galleries  in  the  air,  elevating 
arches  to  the  skies,  and  stage  upon  stage  of  belfry 
until  their  spires  are  lost  in  the  clouds.  They 
exaggerate  the  delicacy  of  forms ;  they  surround 
doors  with  series  of  statuettes,  and  festoon  the 
sides  with  trefoils,  gables  and  gargoyles ;  they  in- 
terlace the  tortuous  tracery  of  mullions  with  the 
motley  hues  of  stained  glass ;  the  choir  seems  to 
be  embroidered  with  lace,  while  tombs,  altars, 
stalls  and  towers  are  covered  with  mazes  of  slen- 
der columns  and  fringes  of  leaves  and  statues. 
It  seems  as  if  they  wished  to  attain  at  once  infi- 
nite grandeur  and  infinite  littleness,  seeking  to 
overwhelm  the  mind  on  either  side,  on  the  one 
hand  with  the  vastness  of  a  mass,  and  on  the 
other  with  a  prodigious  quantity  of  details. 
Their  object  was  evidently  to  produce  an  extra- 
ordinary sensation;  they  aimed  to  dazzle  and 
bewilder. 

Proportionately,  therefore,  to  the  development 
of  this  style  of  architecture,  it  becomes  more  and 
more  paradoxical.  In  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  the  age  of  the  flamboyant  Gothic  oJ 


P&OLWTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 

Strasburg,  Milan,  York,  Nuremburg,  and  the 
Church  of  Brou,  solidity  seems  to  have  been 
wholly  abandoned  for  ornament.  At  one  time  it 
bristles  with  a  profusion  of  multiplied  and  super- 
posed pinnacles ;  at  another  its  exterior  is 
draped  with  a  lacework  of  mouldings.  Walls 
are  hollowed  out,  and  almost  wholly  absorbed  by 
windows;  they  lack  strength,  and  without  the 
buttresses  raised  against  them  the  structure 
would  fall ;  ever  disintegrating,  it  is  necessary  to 
establish  colonies  of  masons  about  them  con- 
stantly to  repair  their  constant  decay.  This  em- 
broidered stonework,  more  and  more  frail  as  it 
ascends  the  spire,  cannot  sustain  itself ;  it  has  to 
be  fastened  to  a  skeleton  of  iron,  and  as  iron 
rusts,  the  blacksmith  is  summoned  to  contribute 
his  share  towards  propping  up  this  unstable,  de- 
lusive magnificence.  In  the  interior  the  decora- 
tion is  so  exuberant  and  complex,  the  groinings 
so  richly  display  their  thorny  and  tangled  vegeta- 
tion, and  the  stalls,  pulpit,  and  railings,  swarm 
with  such  intricate,  tortuous,  fantastic  arabesques, 
that  the  church  no  longer  soems  to  be  a  sacred 
12 


134  THE  PHILOSOPHY  01?  ART. 

monument,  but  a  rare  example  of  the  jeweler's 
art.  It  is  a  vast  structure  of  variegated  glass,  a 
gigantic  piece  of  filigree  work,  a  festive  decora- 
tion as  elaborated  as  that  of  a  queen  or  a  bride ; 
it  is  the  adornment  of  a  nervous,  over-excited 
woman,  similar  to  the  extravagant  costumes  of 
the  day,  whose  delicate  and  morbid  poesy  de- 
notes by  its  excess  the  singular  sentiments,  the 
feverish,  violent,  and  impotent  aspiration  peculiar 
to  an  age  of  knights  and  monks. 

For  this  architecture,  which  has  lasted  four 
centuries,  is  not  confined  to  one  country  or  to 
one  description  of  edifice ;  it  is  spread  over  all 
Europe,  from  Scotland  to  Sicily,  and  is  employed 
in  all  civil  and  religious  and  public  and  private 
monuments.  Not  only  do  cathedrals  and  chapels 
bear  its  imprint,  but  fortresses,  palaces,  costumes, 
dwellings,  furniture,  and  equipments.  Its  uni- 
versality, accordingly,  expresses  and  attests  the 
great  moral  crisis,  at  once  morbid  and  sublime, 
which,  during  the  whole  of  the  middle  ages,  ex- 
alted, and  at  the  same  time  disordered,  the  human 
intellect. 


m 

HUMAN  institutions,  like  living  bodies,  are 
made  and  unmade  by  their  own  forces ;  and  their 
health  passes  away  or  their  cure  is  effected  by  the 
sole  effect  of  their  nature  and  their  situation. 
Among  these  feudal  chiefs  who  ruled  and  plun- 
dered men  in  the  middle  ages  one  was  found  in 
each  country,  stronger,  more  politic,  and  better 
placed  than  others,  who  constituted  himself  con- 
servator of  public  order;  sustained  by  public 
sentiment,  he  by  degrees  weakened  and  subdued, 
subordinated  and  rallied  the  others,  and,  organ- 
izing a  systematic  obedient  administration,  be- 
came under  the  name  of  king  the  head  of  the 
nation.  Towards  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
barons,  formerly  his  equals,  were  only  his  offi- 
cers, and  towards  the  seventeenth  century  they 
were  simply  his  courtiers. 

Note  the  significance  of  this  term.  A  courtier 
is  a  member  of  the  king's  court ;  that  is  to  say,  a 


136  TJIE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

person  charged  with  some  function  or  domestic 
duty  in  the  palace — either  chamberlain,  equerry, 
or  gentleman  of  the  antechamber — receiving  a 
salary,  and  addressing  his  master  with  all  the 
deference  and  ceremonial  obsequiousness  proper 
to  such  an  employment.  But  this  person  is  not 
a  valet,  as  in  oriental  monarchies,  for  his  ances- 
tor, the  grandfather  of  his  grandfather,  was  the 
equal,  the  companion,  the  peer  of  the  king ;  and 
on  this  account  he  himself  belongs  to  a  privileged 
class,  that  of  noblemen.  He  does  not  serve  his 
prince  solely  through  personal  interest ;  his  de- 
votion to  him  is  a  point  of  honor.  The  prince  in 
his  turn  never  neglects  to  treat  him  with  consid- 
eration. Louis  XIV.  threw  his  cane  out  of  the 
window  in  order  not  to  be  tempted  to  strike 
Lauzun,  who  had  offended  him.  The  courtier  is 
honored  by  his  master,  and  regarded  as  one  of 
his  society.  He  lives  in  familiarity  with  him, 
dances  at  his  balls,  dines  at  his  table,  rides  in  the 
same  carriage,  sits  in  the  same  chairs,  and  fre- 
quents the  same  salon.  From  such  a  basis  court 
ife  arose ;  first  in  Italy  and  Spain,  subsequently 


PRODUCTION  OF  TEE  WORK  OF  ART.       137 

in  France,  and  afterwards  in  England,  in  Ger- 
many, and  in  the  north  of  Europe.  France  was 
its  centre,  and  Louis  XIV.  gave  to  it  its  princi- 
pal eddt. 

Let  us  study  the  effect  of  this  new  state  of 
things  on  minds  and  characters.  The  king's 
salon  is  the  first  in  the  country,  and  is  frequented 
by  the  most  select  society;  the  most  admired 
personage,  therefore,  the  accomplished  man 
whom  everybody  accepts  for  a  model,  is  the 
nobleman  enjoying  familiarity  with  his  sovereign. 
This  nobleman  entertains  generous  sentiments; 
he  believes  himself  of  a  superior  race,  and  he 
says  to  himself,  noblesse  oblige.  He  is  more  sen- 
sitive than  other  men  on  the  point  of  honor,  and 
freely  risks  his  life  at  the  slightest  insult.  Under 
Louis  XTTT.  four  thousand  noblemen  were  killed 
in  duels.  Contempt  of  danger,  in  the  eyes  of 
this  nobleman,  is  the  first  obligation  of  a  soul 
nobly  born.  The  dandy,  the  wordling,  so  choice 
of  his  ribbons,  so  careful  of  his  perruque,  ia 
ready  to  encamp  in  Flanders  mud,  and  expose 
himself  to  bullets  for  hours  together  at  Neer 


138  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AET. 

winden.  When  Luxembourg  announces  that  he 
is  about  to  give  battle,  Versailles  is  deserted ;  all 
these  young  perfumed  gallants  hasten  off  to  the 
army  as  if  they  were  going  to  a  ball.  Finally, 
and  through  a  remnant  of  the  spirit  of  ancient 
feudalism,  our  nobleman  regards  the  monarch  as 
his  natural  legitimate  chief:  he  knows  he  is 
bound  to  him,  as  the  vassal  formerly  was  to  his 
suzerain,  and  at  need  will  give  him  his  blood,  his 
property,  and  his  life.  Under  Louis  XVI.  noble- 
men voluntarily  placed  themselves  at  the  king's 
disposal,  and  on  the  10th  of  August  many  were 
slain  in  his  behalf. 

But  they  are  nevertheless  courtiers,  that  is  to 
say,  men  of  the  world,  and  in  this  respect  per- 
fectly polite.  The  King  himself  sets  them  an  ex- 
ample. Louis  XTV.  even  doffed  his  hat  to  a 
chambermaid,  and  the  Memoirs  of  St.  Simon 
mention  a  duke  who  saluted  so  frequently  that 
he  was  obliged  to  cross  the  courts  of  Versailles 
bareheaded.  The  courtier,  for  the  same  reason, 
is  accomplished  in  all  that  appertains  to  good 
breeding;  language  never  fails  him  in  difficult 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.        139 

circumstances ;  he  is  a  diplomat,  master  of  him- 
self, an  adept  in  the  art  of  disguising,  concealing, 
flattering  and  managing  others,  never  giving  of- 
fense, and  often  pleasing.  AH  these  qualifica- 
tions and  these  sentiments  proceed  from  an  aris- 
tocratic spirit  refined  by  the  usages  of  society; 
they  attain  to  perfection  in  this  court  and  in  this 
century.  Anybody  of  the  present  time  disposed 
to  admire  the  choice  flowers  of  this  lost  and  deli- 
cate species  need  not  look  for  them  in  our  equal- 
ized, rude  and  mixed  society,  but  must  turn  to 
the  elegant,  formal,  monumental  parterres  in 
which  they  formerly  flourished. 

You  can  imagine  that  people  so  constituted 
must  have  chosen  pleasures  appropriate  to  theii 
character.  Their  taste,  indeed,  like  their  per- 
sons, was  noble ;  for  they  were  not  only  noble  by 
birth,  but  also  through  their  sentiments ;  and 
correct  because  they  were  educated  to  practice 
and  respect  what  was  becoming  to  them.  It  was 
this  taste  which,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  fash- 
ioned all  their  works  of  art — the  serious,  elevated, 
severe  productions  of  Poussin  and  Lesuenr,  tlif 


140  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

grave,  pompous,  elaborate  architecture  of  Maii- 
sart  and  Perrault,  and  the  stately,  symmetrical 
gardens  of  Le  Notre.  You  mil  find  its  traces  in 
the  furniture,  costumes,  house  decoration,  and 
carriages  of  the  engravings  and  paintings  of 
Perelle,  Sebastian  Leclerc,  Bigaud,  Nanteuil, 
and  many  others.  Versailles,  with  its  groups  of 
well-bred  gods,  its  symmetrical  alleys,  its  mytho- 
logical water-works,  its  large  artificial  basins,  its 
trimmed  and  pruned  trees  modeled  into  archi- 
tectural designs,  is  a  masterpiece  in  this  direc- 
tion ;  all  its  edifices  and  parterres,  everything  be- 
longing to  it,  was  constructed  for  men  solicitous 
about  their  dignity,  and  strict  observers  of  the 
recognized  standard  of  social  propriety.  But  the 
imprint  is  still  more  visible  in  the  literature  of 
the  epoch.  Never  in  France  or  in  Europe  has 
the  art  of  fine  writing  been  carried  to  such  per- 
fection. The  greatest  of  French  authors,  as  you 
are  aware,  belong  to  this  epoch — Bossuet,  Pascal, 
La  Fontaine,  Moliere,  Corneille,  Kacine,  La 
Rochefoucauld,  Madame  de  Se'vigne,  Boileau,  La 
Bruyere,  Bourdaloue,  and  others.  Great  men 


PRODUCTION  OF  TEE  WORK  OF  ART.       \£\ 

not  only  wrote  well,  bat  almost  everybody; 
Courier  asserted  that  a  chambermaid  of  those 
days  knew  more  about  style  than  a  modem 
academy.  In  fact,  a  good  style  at  that  time  per- 
vaded the  air,  people  unconsciously  inhaling  it ; 
it  prevailed  in  correspondence  and  in  conversa- 
tion ;  the  court  taught  it ;  it  entered  into  the  ways 
of  people  of  the  world.  The  man  who  aimed  to 
be  polished  and  correct  in  deportment,  got  to  be 
so  likewise  in  the  attributes  of  language  and  of 
style.  Among  so  many  branches  of  literature 
there  is  one,  tragedy,  which  reached  a  singular 
degree  of  perfection,  and  which  more  than  all  the 
rest  furnishes  at  that  time  the  most  striking  ex- 
ample of  the  concordance  which  links  together 
man  and  his  works,  manners  and  the  arts. 

The  general  features  of  this  tragedy  first  claim 
attention ;  they  are  all  calculated  to  please  noble- 
men and  members  of  the  court.  The  poet  does 
not  fail  in  the  blandishment  of  truth,  which  by  its 
nature  is  often  crude ;  he  allows  no  murders  on 
the  stage ;  he  disguises  brutality  and  repudiates 
violence,  such  as  blows,  butcheries,  yells,  and 


142  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

groans,  everything  that  might  offend  the  senses 
of  a  spectator  accustomed  to  moderation  and  the 
elegances  of  the  salon.  For  the  same  reason  he 
excludes  disorder,  never  abandoning  himself  to 
the  caprices  of  fancy  and  imagination  like  Shake- 
speare ;  his  plan  is  regular,  he  admits  no  unfore- 
seen incidents,  no  romantic  poesy.  He  elaborates 
his  scenes,  explains  entrances,  graduates  the  in- 
terest of  his  piece,  prepares  the  way  for  sudden 
turns  of  fortune,  and  skillfully  anticipates  and  di- 
rects denouments.  Finally,  he  diffuses  through- 
out the  dialogue,  like  a  uniform  brilliant  varnish, 
a  studied  versification  composed  of  the  choicest 
terms  and  the  most  harmonious  rhymes.  If  we 
seek  the  costume  of  this  drama  in  the  engravings 
of  the  time  we  find  heroes  and  princesses  appear- 
ing in  furbelows,  embroideries,  bootees,  swords 
and  plumes — a  dress,  in  short,  Greek  in  name, 
but  French  in  taste  and  fashion;  such  as  tho 
king,  the  dauphin,  and  the  princesses  paraded  in, 
to  ihe  music  of  violins,  at  the  court  performances 
of  ballets. 
Note,  moreover,  that  all  his  personages  are 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       143 

courtiers,  kings  and  queens,  princes  and  prin- 
cesses of  royal  blood,  ambassadors,  ministers, 
officers  of  the  guard,  menins*  dependents  and 
confidants.  The  associates  of  princes  are  not 
here,  as  in  ancient  Greek  tragedy,  slaves  of  the 
palace  and  nurses  born  under  their  master's  roof, 
but  ladies-in-waiting,  equerries,  and  gentlemen 
of  the  antechamber,  charged  with  certain  duties 
in  the  royal  household ;  we  readily  detect  this  in 
their  conversational  ability,  in  their  skill  in  flat- 
tery, in  their  perfect  education,  in  their  exquisite 
deportment,  and  in  their  monarchical  sentiments 
as  subjects  and  vassals.  Their  masters,  like 
themselves,  are  French  noblemen  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  proud  and  courteous,  heroic  in 
Corneille  and  noble  in  Bacine ;  they  are  gallants 
with  the  ladies,  faithful  to  their  name  and  race, 
capable  of  sacrificing  their  dearest  interests  and 
strongest  affections  to  their  honor,  and  incapable 
of  uttering  a  word  or  an  act  which  the  most  rigid 
courtesy  would  not  authorize.  Iphigenia,  in  Ra  - 

•  Foster-brother,  school-companion,  or  other  intimite  of  thit 


144  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

cine,  delivered  up  by  her  father  to  her  execu- 
tioners, does  not  regret  life,  weeping  like  a  girl, 
as  in  Euripides,  but  thinks  it  her  duty  to  obey 
her  father  and  her  king  without  a  murmur,  and 
to  die  without  shedding  a  tear,  because  she  is  a 
princess.  Achilles,  who  in  Homer  stamps,  still 
unappeased,  on  the  body  of  the  dying  Hector, 
feeling  like  a  lion  or  wolf,  as  if  he  would  "eat 
the  raw  flesh"  of  his  vanquished  antagonist,  is, 
in  Eacine,  a  Prince  of  Conde,  at  once  brilliant 
and  seductive,  passionate  concerning  honor,  de- 
voted to  the  fair,  impetuous,  it  is  true,  and  irrita- 
ble, but  with  the  reserved  vivacity  of  a  young 
officer  who,  even  when  most  excited,  maintains 
good  breeding  and  never  stoops  to  brutality. 
All  these  characters  are  models  of  polite  address, 
and  show  a  knowledge  of  the  world  never  at 
fault.  Bead,  in  Racine,  the  first  dialogue  of 
Oreste  and  Pyrrkiis,  and  the  whole  of  the  part  of 
Acomat  and  of  Ulysse;  nowhere  is  greater  tact  or 
oratorical  dexterity  apparent ;  nowhere  more  in- 
genious compliments  and  flatteries,  exordiums  so 
well  poised,  such  a  quick  revelation,  such  an  in- 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       14.5 

genious  adjustment,  such  a  delicate  insinuation  ol 
appropriate  motives.  The  wildest  and  most  im- 
petuous lovers — Hippdyte,  Britannicus,  Pyrrhus, 
Oreste,  and  Xiphares — are  accomplished  cavaliers 
who  turn  a  madrigal  and  bow  with  the  utmost 
deference.  However  violent  their  passions  may 
be,  Hermione,  Andromaque,  Roxane,  and  Berenice, 
preserve  the  tone  of  the  best  society.  MUhridate, 
Phedre,  and  Athalie,  when  expiring,  express  them- 
selves in  correct  periods,  for  a  prince  has  to  be  a 
prince  to  the  last,  and  die  in  due  form.  This 
drama  might  be  called  a  perfect  picture  of  the 
fashionable  world.  Like  Gothic  architecture,  it 
represents  a  positive  complete  side  of  the  human 
mind,  and  this  is  why,  like  that,  it  has  become  so 
universal.  It  has  been  imported  into,  or  imitated 
by,  along  with  its  accompanying  taste,  literature, 
and  manners,  every  court  of  Europe — in  En- 
gland, after  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts;  in 
Spain,  on  the  advent  of  the  Bourbons;  and  in 
Italy,  Germany,  and  Russia,  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  "We  are  warranted  in  saying  that  at 
this  epoch  France  was  the  educator  of  Europe ; 
13 


146  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

she  was  the  source  from  which  was  derived  all 
that  was  elegant  and  agreeable,  whatever  was 
proper  in  style,  delicate  in  ideas,  and  perfect  in 
the  art  of  social  intercourse.  If  a  savage  Mus- 
covite, a  dull  German,  a  stolid  Englishman,  or 
any  other  uncivilized  or  half-civilized  man  of  the 
North  quit  his  brandy,  pipe,  and  furs,  his  feudal 
or  hunting  or  rural  life,  it  was  to  French  salons 
and  to  French  books  he  betook  himself,  in  order 
to  acquire  the  arts  of  politeness,  urbanity,  and 
conversation. 


vm. 

THIS  brilliant  society  did  not  last ;  it  was  its 
own  development  which  caused  its  dissolution. 
The  government  being  absolute,  ended  in  becom- 
ing negligent  and  tyrannical;  and,  besides  this, 
the  king  bestowed  the  best  offices  and  the  great- 
est favor  only  on  such  of  the  nobles  of  his  court 
as  enjoyed  his  intimacy.  This  appeared  unjust 
to  the  bourgeoisie  and  to  the  people,  who,  having 
greatly  increased  in  numbers,  wealth  and  intelli- 
gence, felt  their  power  augment  in  proportion  to 
the  growth  of  their  discontent.  The  French  Rev- 
olution was  accordingly  their  work ;  and  after  ten 
years  of  trial  they  established  a  system  of  democ- 
racy and  equality,  in  which,  according  to  a  fixed 
order  of  promotion,  all  civil  employments  were 
ordinarily  accessible  to  everybody.  The  wars  of 
the  empire  and  the  contagion  of  example  grad- 
ually spread  this  system  beyond  the  frontiers  of 
Prance,  and  whatever  may  be  local  differences 


148  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AMT. 

and  temporary  delays,  it  is  now  evident  that  the 
tendency  of  the  whole  of  Europe  is  to  imitate  it. 
The  new  construction  of  society,  coupled  with  the 
invention  of  industrial  machinery,  and  the  great 
abatement  of  rudeness  in  manners  and  customs, 
has  changed  the  condition  as  well  as  the  charac- 
ter of  man.  Henceforth,  man  is  exempt  from 
arbitrary  measures,  and  is  protected  by  a  good 
police.  However  lowly  born,  all  careers  are 
open  to  him  ;  an  enormous  increase  of  useful  ar- 
ticles places  within  reach  of  the  poorest  conven- 
iences and  pleasures  of  which,  two  centuries  ago, 
the  rich  were  entirely  ignorant.  Again,  the  rigor 
of  authority  is  mitigated,  both  in  society  and  in 
the  family ;  a  father  is  now  the  companion  of  his 
children,  and  the  citizen  has  become  the  equal  of 
the  noble.  Human  life,  in  short,  displays  a  lessei 
degree  of  misery,  and  a  lighter  degree  of  oppres- 
sion. 

But,  as  a  counterpart  of  this,  we  see  ambition 
and  cupidity  spreading  their  wings.  Accustomed 
to  comfort  and  luxuries,  and  obtaining  here  and 
there  glimpses  of  happiness,  man  begins  to  regard 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 

happiness  and  comfort  as  his  due.  The  more  he 
obtains,  the  more  exacting  he  becomes,  and  the 
more  his  pretensions  exceed  his  acquisitions. 
The  practical  sciences  also  having  made  great 
progress,  and  instruction  being  diffused,  liberated 
thought  abandons  itself  to  all  daring  enterprises ; 
hence  it  happens  that  men,  relinquishing  the  tra- 
ditions which  formerly  regulated  their  beliefs, 
deem  themselves  capable,  through  intellect  alone, 
of  attaining  to  the  highest  truths.  Questions  of 
every  kind  are  mooted,  moral,  political  and  relig- 
ious ;  men  seek  knowledge  by  groping  their  way 
in  every  direction.  For  fifty  years  past  we  behold 
this  strange  conflict  of  systems  and  sects,  each 
tendering  us  new  creeds  and  perfect  theories  of 
happiness. 

Such  a  state  of  things  has  a  wonderful  effect 
on  minds  and  ideas.  The  representative  man, 
that  is  to  say,  the  character  who  occupies  the 
stage,  and  to  whom  the  spectators  award  the 
most  interest  and  sympathy,  is  the  melancholy, 
ambitious  dreamer — Rene,  Faust,  Werther  and 
Manfred— a  yearning  heart,  restless,  wandering 


150  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

and  incurably  miserable.  Arid  he  is  miserable 
for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place  he  is  over- 
sensitive, too  easily  affected  by  the  lesser  evils  of 
life ;  he  has  too  great  a  craving  for  delicate  and 
blissful  sensations;  he  is  too  much  accustomed 
to  comfort ;  he  has  not  had  the  semi-feudal  and 
semi-rustic  education  of  our  ancestors;  he  has 
not  been  roughly  handled  by  his  father,  whipped 
at  college,  obliged  to  maintain  respectful  silence 
in  the  presence  of  great  personages,  and  had  his 
mental  growth  retarded  by  domestic  discipline ; 
he  has  not  been  compelled,  as  in  ancient  times, 
to  use  his  own  arm  and  sword  to  protect  himself, 
to  travel  on  horseback,  and  to  sleep  in  disagree- 
able lodgings.  In  the  soft  atmosphere  of  mod- 
ern comfort  and  of  sedentary  habits,  he  has  be- 
come delicate,  nervous,  excitable,  and  less  capa- 
ble of  accommodating  himself  to  the  course  of 
life  which  always  exacts  effort  and  imposes 
trouble. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  is  skeptical.  Society 
and  religion  both  being  disturbed — in  the  midst 
of  a  pele-mele  of  doctrines  and  an  irruption  of 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 

Q3W  theories — his  precocious  judgment,  too  rap- 
idly instructed,  and  too  soon  unbridled,  precipi- 
tates him  early  and  blindly  off  the  beaten  track 
made  smooth  for  his  fathers  by  habit,  and  which 
they  have  trodden,  led  on  by  tradition  and  gov- 
erned by  authority.  All  the  barriers  which 
served  as  guides  to  minds  having  fallen,  he 
rushes  forward  into  the  vast,  confusing  field 
which  is  opened  out  before  his  eyes ;  impelled  by 
almost  superhuman  ambition  and  curiosity  he 
darts  off  in  the  pursuit  of  absolute  truth  and  infi- 
nite happiness.  Neither  love,  glory,  knowledge 
nor  power,  as  we  find  these  in  this  world,  can 
satisfy  him  ;  the  intemperance  of  his  desires,  ir- 
ritated by  the  incompleteness  of  his  conquests 
and  by  the  nothingness  of  his  enjoyments,  leaves 
him  prostrate  amid  the  ruins  of  his  own  nature, 
without  his  jaded,  enfeebled,  impotent  imagina- 
tion being  able  to  represent  to  him  the  beyond 
which  he  covets,  and  the  unknown  ivhat  which  he 
has  not.  This  evil  has  been  styled  the  great 
malady  of  the  age.  Forty  years  ago  it  was  in 
full  force,  and  under  the  apparent  frigidity  or 


152  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AHT. 

gloomy  impassibility  of  the  positive  mind  of  the 
present  day  it  still  subsists. 

I  have  not  the  time  to  show  you  the  innumer' 
able  effects  of  a  like  state  of  mind  on  works  of 
art.  You  may  trace  them  in  the  great  develop- 
ment of  the  lyrical,  sentimental  and  philosoph- 
ical poetry  of  France,  Germany  and  England; 
again,  in  the  corruption  and  enrichment  of  lan- 
guage and  in  the  invention  of  new  classes  and  of 
new  characters  in  literature;  in  the  style  and 
sentiments  of  all  the  great  modern  writers,  from 
Chateaubriand  to  Balzac,  from  Goethe  to  Heine, 
from  Cowper  to  Byron,  and  from  AMeri  to  Leo- 
pardi.  You  will  find  analogous  symptoms  in  the 
arts  of  design  if  you  will  observe  their  feverish, 
tortured  and  painfully  archeological  style,  their 
aim  at  dramatic  effect,  psychological  expression, 
and  local  fidelity;  if  you  observe  the  confusion 
which  has  befogged  the  schools  and  injured  their 
processes ;  if  you  pay  attention  to  the  countless 
gifted  minds  who,  shaken  by  new  emotions,  have 
opened  out  new  ways ;  if  you  analyze  the  pro- 
found sympathy  for  scenery  which  has  given 


fRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.        155 

birth  to  a  complete  and  original  landscape  art 
But  there  is  another  art,  Music,  which  has  sud- 
denly reached  an  extraordinary  development. 
This  development  is  one  of  the  salient  character- 
istics of  our  epoch,  and  the  dependence  of  this 
on  the  modern  mind,  the  ties  by  which  they  are 
connected,  I  shall  endeavor  to  point  out  to  you. 
This  art_was  born,  and  necessarily,  in  two 
countries  where  people  sing  naturally,  Italy  and 
Germany.  It  was  gestating  for  a  century  and  a 
half  in  Italy,  from  Palestrina  to  Pergolese,  as  for- 
merly painting  from  Giotto  to  Massaccio,  discov- 
ering processes  and  feelujg.jjjs.  waj_ibj.  .order  to 
acquire  its  resources.  At  the  commencement  of 
the  eighteenth  century^  it  suddenly  burst  forth, 
with  Scarlatti,  Marcello  and  JSandel.  This  is  a 
most  remarkable  egoch^  Painting  at  this  time 
ceased  to  flourish  in  Italy,  and  in  the  midst  of 
political  stagnation,  voluptuous,  effeminate  cus- 
toms prevailed,  furnishing  an  assembly  of  sigis- 
bes,  Lindors  and  amorous  ladies  for  the  roulades 
and  tender  sentimental  scenes  of  the  opera. 
Grave,  ponderous  Germany,  at  that  time  the 


154:  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

latest  in  acquiring  self-consciousness,  now  suo« 
ceeds  in  displaying  the  severity  and  grandeur  of 
its  religious  sentiment,  its  profound  knowledge, 
and  its  vague  melancholy  instincts  in  the  sacred 
music  of  Sebastian  Bach,  anticipating  the  evan- 
gelical epic  of  Klopstock.  In  the  old  and  in  the 
new  nation  the  reign  and  expression  of  s&rdiment 
is  beginning.  Between  the  two,  half-Germanic 
and  half-Italian,  is  Austria,  conciliating  the  two 
spirits,  producing  Haydn,  Gluck  and  Mozart. 
Music  now  becomes  cosmopolite  and  universal 
on  the  confines  of  that  great  mental  convulsion 
of  souls  styled  the  French  Revolution,  as  for- 
merly painting  under  the  impulse  of  the  great 
intellectual  revival  known  under  the  name  of 
the  Renaissance.  "We  need  not  be  astonished  at 
the  appearance  of  this  new  art,  for  it  corres- 
ponds to  the  appearance  of  a  new  genius — that 
of  the  ruling,  morbid,  restless,  ardent  character 
I  have  attempted  to  portray  for  you.  It  is  to 
this  spirit  that  Beethoven,  Mendelssohn  and 
Weber  formerly  addressed  themselves,  and  to 
which  Meyerbeer,  Berlioz  and  Verdi  are  now 
striving  to  accommodate  themselves. 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       155 

Music  is  the  organ  of  this  over-refined  exces- 
sive sensibility  and  vague  boundless  aspiration ; 
it  is  expressly  designed  for  this  service,  and  no 
art  so  well  performs  its  task.  And  this  is  so  be- 
cause, on  the  one  hand,  music  is  founded  on  a 
more  or  less  remote  imitation  of  a  cry  which  is 
the  natural,  spontaneous,  complete  expression  of 
passion,  and  which,  affecting  us  through  a  cor 
poreal  stimulus,  instantly  arouses  involuntarj 
sympathy,  so  that  the  tremulous  delicacy  of  every 
nervous  being  finds  in  it  its  impulse,  its  echo,  and 
its  ministrant.  On  the  other  hand,  founded  on 
relationships  of  sounds  which  represent  no  living 
form,  and  which,  especially  in  instrumental 
music,  seem  to  be  the  reveries  of  an  incorporeal 
soul,  it  is  better  adapted  than  any  other  art  to 
express  floating  thoughts,  formless  dreams,  ob- 
jectless limitless  desires,  the  grandiose  and  dolor- 
ous mazes  of  a  troubled  heart  which  aspires  to  all 
and  is  attached  to  nothing.  This  is  why,  along 
with  the  discontent,  the  agitations,  and  the  hopes 
of  modern  democracy,  music  has  left  its  natal 
•jonri  trios  and  diffused  itself  Dver  all  Europe ;  and 


156  THS  PHLL  OSOPHY  OF  ART. 

why  you  see  at  the  present  time  the  most  com 
plicated  symphonies  attracting  crowds  in  France, 
where,  thus  far,  the  national  music  has  been  re- 
duced to  the  song  and  the  melodies  of  the  Vaude- 
ville. 


IX. 

THE  foregoing  illustrations,  gentlemen,  seem 
to  me  sufficient  to  establish  the  law  governing  the 
character  and  creation  of  works  of  art.  And  not 
only  do  they  establish  it,  but  they  accurately  de- 
fine it.  In  the  beginning  of  this  section  I  stated 
that  the  work  of  art  is  determined  by  an  aggregate 
which  is  the  general  state  of  the  mind  and  surround- 
ing manners.  We  may  now  advance  another  step, 
and  note  precisely  in  their  order  each  link  of  the 
chain,  connecting  together  cause  and  effect. 

In  the  various  illustrations  we  have  considered, 
yon  have  remarked  first,  a  general  situation,  in 
other  words,  a  certain  universal  condition  of  good 
or  evil,  one  of  servitude  or  of  liberty,  a  state  of 
wealth  or  of  poverty,  a  particular  form  of  society, 
a  certain  species  of  religious  faith ;  in  Greece,  the 
free  martial  city,  with  its  slaves ;  in  the  middle 
ages,  feudal  oppression,  invasion  and  brigandage, 
and  an  exalted  phase  of  Christianity ;  the  court 
4 


158  THE  PHILOSOPHY  CF  ART. 

life  of  the  seventeenth  century ;  the  industrial  and 
studied  democracy  of  the  nineteenth,  guided  by 
the  sciences ;  in  short,  a  group  of  circumstances 
controlling  man,  and  to  which  he  is  compelled  to 
resign  himself. 

This  situation  develops  in  man  corresponding 
needs,  distinct  aptitudes  and  special  sentiments — 
physical  activity,  a  tendency  to  reverie;  here 
rudeness,  and  there  refinement ;  at  one  time  a 
martial  instinct,  at  another  conversational  talent, 
at  another  a  love  of  pleasure,  and  a  thousand 
other  complex  and  varied  peculiarities.  In 
Greece  we  see  physical  perfection  and  a  balance 
of  faculties  which  no  manual  or  cerebral  excess 
of  life  deranges ;  in  the  middle  ages,  the  intem- 
perance of  over-excited  imaginations  and  the  deli- 
cacy of  feminine  sensibility ;  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  polish  and  good-breeding  of  society 
and  the  dignity  of  aristocratic  salons;  and  in 
modern  times,  the  grandeur  of  unchained  ambi- 
tions and  the  morbidity  of  unsatisfied  yearnings. 

New,  this  ^oup  of^fintimentaj  npfoifarlft  and 
neo!s,  constitutes,  when  concentrated  in one  jger- 


PRODUCTION  OP  THE  WORK  OF  ART. 
BOB  and  powerfully  displayed  by  him,  the  r&present* 


ative  wan^  that  te  to  s^^ 

whom  his  contemporaries  award  all  their  adrnira^ 
tion  and  all  their  sympathy;  there  is,  .jfor._Jn^ 
stance,  iiTGreece,  the  naked  youtht  of  a  fine^race 

and  accomplished  in  all  bodily  exercise  :  in...tbja. 

_  *  ____  ..^•••^•••jfc^'""^"*^^'***''**' 

middle  ages,  the  ecstatic  monk^andiJh,Q.8)m.Qri)us 
knight;  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  perfect, 


courtier  ;  and  in  our  days,  the  melanchojy  i 
ble  Faust  or  Werthur. 

Moreover,  as  this  personage  is  the  most  capti- 
vating, the  most  important  and  the  most  conspic- 
uous of  all,  it  is  he  whom  artists  present  to  the 
public,  now  concentrated  in  an  ideal  personage, 
when  their  art,  like  painting,  sculpture,  the  drama, 
the  romance  or  the  epic,  is  imitative  ;  now,  dis- 
persed in  its  elements,  as  in  architecture  and  in 
music,  where  art  excites  emotions  without  incar- 
nating them.  All  their  labor,  therefore,  may  be 
summed  up  as  follows  :  they  either  represent  this 
character,  or  address  themselves  to  it  ;  the  sym- 
phonies of  Beethoven  and  the  "storied  windows" 
of  cathedrals  are  addressed  to  it  ;  and  it  Is  repre- 


160  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

sented  in  the  Niobe  group  of  antiquity  and  in  the 
Agamemnon  and  Achilles  of  Racine.  All  art, 
therefore,  depends  on  it,  since  the  whole  of  art  is 
applied  only  to  conform  to,  or  to  express  it. 

A  general  situation,  provoking  tendencies  and 
special  faculties ;  a  representative  man,  embody- 
ing these  predominant  tendencies  and  faculties 
sounds,  forms,  colors,  or  language  giving  this 
character  sensuous  form,  or  which  comport  with 
the  tendencies  and  faculties  comprising  it,  such 
are~the  four  terms  of  the  series ;  the  first  carries 
witliirtne  second,  the  second  the  third,  and  the 
third  the  fourth,  so  that  the  slightest  variation  of 
either  involves  a  corresponding  variation  in  those 
that  follow,  and  reveals  a  corresponding  variation 
in  those  that  precede  it,  permitting  abstract  rea- 
soning in  either  direction  in  an  ascending  or  de- 
scending scale  of  progression.*  As  far  as  I  am 


capable  of  judging,  this  formula  embraces  every- 
thing.    If,  now,  we  insert  between  these  diverse 

*  This  law  may  be  applied  to  the  study  of  all  literatures  and  to 
every  art  The  student  may  begin  with  the  fourth  term,  pro. 
ceeding  from  this  to  the  firs*,  strictly  adhering  to  the  order  of  the 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  ART.       l(jl 

terms  the  accessory  causes  occurring  to  modify 
their  effects  if,  in  order  to  explain  the  senti- 
ments of  an  epoch,  we  add  an  examination  of 
race  to  that  of  the  social  medium ;  if,  in  order  to 
explain  the  works  of  art  of  any  age;  we  consider, 
besides  the  prevailing  tendencies  of  that  age,  the 
particular  period  of  the  art,  and  the  particular 
sentiments  of  each  artist,  we  shall  then  derive 
from  the  law  not  only  the  great  revolutions  and 
general  forms  of  man's  imagination,  but,  again, 
the  differences  between  national  schools,  the  in- 
cessant variations  of  various  styles,  and  the  orig- 
inal characteristics  of  the  works  of  every  great 
master.  Thus  followed  out,  such  an  explanation 
will  be  complete,  since  it  furnishes  at  once  the 
general  traits  of  each  school,  and  the  distinctive 
traits  which,  in  this  school,  characterize  individ- 
uals. "We  are  about  to  enter  upon  this  study  in 
relation  to  Italian  art;  it  is  a  long  and  difficult 
task,  and  I  have  need  of  your  attentior  in  ordei 
to  pursue  it  to  the  end. 


X. 

BEFOEE  proceeding  further,  gentlemen,  there  la 
a  practical  and  personal  conclusion  due  to  our 
researches,  and  which  is  applicable  to  the  pres- 
ent order  of  things. 

You  have  observed  that  each  situation  pro- 
duces a  certain  state  of  mind  followed  by  a  cor- 
responding class  of  works  of  art.  This  is  why 
every  new  situation  must  produce  a  new  state  of 
mind,  and  consequently  a  new  class  of  works ; 
and  therefore  why  the  social  medium  of  the 
present  day,  now  in  the  course  of  formation, 
ought  to  produce  its  own  works  like  the  social 
mediums  that  have  gone  before  it.  This  is  not  a 
simple  supposition  based  on  the  current  of  desire 
and  of  hope ;  it  is  the  result  of  a  law  resting  on 
the  authority  of  experience  and  on  the  testimony 
of  history.  From  the  moment  a  law  is  estab- 
lished it  is  good  for  all  time  ;  the  connections  of 
things  in  the  present,  accompany  connections  oi 


PRODUCTION  OF  THE    VORK  OF  ART. 

things  in  the  past  and  in  the  future.  Accordingly, 
it  need  not  be  said  in  these  days  that  art  is  ex- 
hausted. It  is  true  that  certain  schools  no  longer 
exist  and  can  no  longer  be  revived ;  that  certain 
arts  languish,  and  that  the  future  upon  which  we 
are  entering  does  not  promise  to  furnish  the 
aliment  that  these  require.  But  art  itself,  which 
is  the  faculty  of  perceiving  and  expressing  the 
leading  character  of  objects,  is  as  enduring  as  the 
civilization  of  which  it  is  the  best  and  earliest 
fruit.  What  its  forms  will  be,  and  which  of  the 
five  great  arts  will  provide  the  vehicle  of  expres- 
sion of  future  sentiment,  we  are  not  called  upon 
to  decide ;  we  have  the  right  to  affirm  that  new 
forms  will  arise,  and  an  appropriate  mould  be 
found  in  which  to  cast  them.  We  have  only  to 
open  our  eyes  to  see  a  change  going  on  in  the 
condition  of  men,  and  consequently  in  their 
minds,  so  profound,  so  universal,  and  so  rapid 
that  no  other  century  has  witnessed  the  like  of  it. 
The  three  causes  that  have  formed  the  modern 
mind  continue  to  operate  with  increasing  efficacy. 
You  are  all  aware  that  discoveries  in  ike  positive 


TSE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AMI. 

sciences  are  multiplying  daily ;  that  geology, 
organic  chemistry,  history,  entire  branches  of 
physics  and  zoology,  are  contemporary  produc- 
tions ;  that  the  growth  of  experience  is  infinite, 
and  the  applications  of  discovery  unlimited ;  that 
means  of  communication  and  transport,  cultiva- 
tion, trade,  mechanical  contrivances,  all  the  ele- 
ments of  human  power,  are  yearly  spreading  and 
concentrating  beyond  all  expectation.  None  of 
you  are  ignorant  that  the  political  machine  works 
smoother  in  the  same  sense ;  that  communities, 
becoming  more  rational  and  humane,  are  watch- 
ful of  internal  order,  protecting  talent,  aiding  the 
feeble  and  the  poor;  in  short,  that  everywhere, 
and  in  every  way,  man  is  cultivating  his  intellect- 
ual faculties  and  ameliorating  his  social  condi- 
tion. We  cannot  accordingly  deny  that  men's 
habits,  ideas  and  condition  transform  themselves, 
nor  reject  this  consequence,  that  such  renewal  of 
minds  and  things  brings  along  with  it  a  renewal 
of  art.  The  first  period  of  this  evolution  gave 
rise  to  the  glorious  French  school  of  1830 ;  it  re« 
mains  for  us  to  witness  the  second- -the  field 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

which  is  open  to  your  ambition  and  your  labor. 
On  its  very  threshold,  you  have  a  right  to  augur 
well  of  your  century  and  of  yourselves  ;  for  the 
patient  study  we  have  just  terminated  shows  you 
that  to  produce  beautiful  works,  the  sole  condi- 
tion necessary  is  that  which  the  great  Goethe  in- 
dicated: "Fill  your  mind  and 


large,  with  the  ideas  and  sentiments  of  your 
and  the  work  will  follow." 


THE    IDEAL    IN    ART 


NOTICE. 

"THE  IDEAL  IN  ART,"  forms  the  substance  of 
two  lectures,  delivered  during  the  past  year  to 
the  students  of  the  Ecde  des  Beaux-At-ts,  in  Paris, 
by  M.  TAINE,  Professor  of  the  History  of  Art  in 
that  institution.  The  subject  is  treated  in  accord- 
ance with  the  principles  laid  down  by  this  dis- 
tinguished writer  in  "The  Philosophy  of  Art," 
the  theory  of  which  it  may  be  said  to  complete. 


DEDICATED 
TO 

M.    SAINTE-BEUVE, 


SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS 


PACK. 

Object  and  method  of  the  treatise  —  Sense  of  die  term  ideal  179 

I.  All  characters,  apparently,  are  of  equal  value  —  Logical 
reasons  —  Historical  reasons  —  Various  modes  of  treating 
the  same  subject  —  The  miser,  the  father,  and  the  lover 
in  literature  —  Among  paintings,  Rembrandt's  and  Vero- 
nese's "Last  Supper,"  Raphael's  and  Rubens'  mytho- 
logical subjects,  and  the  "  Ledas  "  of  Da  Vinci,  Michael 
Angelo  and  Corr«ggio—  Absolute  value  of  all  notable 
characters  .....  181 

n.  Value,  more  or  less  great,  of  various  works  —  The  con- 
cordance of  tastes  and  definite  judgment  of  posterity  on 
several  points  —  The  authority  of  these  verdicts  confirmed 
by  the  way  in  which  opinion  is  established  —  Final  con- 
firmation given  through  the  modern  processes  of  criticism 
—  There  are  laws  determining  the  value  of  a  work  of  art  193 

HI.  Definition  of  the  work  of  art  —  The  two  conditions  which 
it  must  fulfill  —  Value,  more  or  less  great,  of  works  of 
art,  according  as  these  two  conditions  are  more  or  less 
fulfilled  —  Application  of  this  to  the  arts  of  imitation  — 
How,  and  under  what  restrictions  the  same  rule  is 
applied  to  the  arts  which  do  not  imitate  .  .  197 


THE  DKGREK  or  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  CHARACTWL 

In  what  the  importance  of  character  consists  —  The  princi- 
ple of  the  subordination  of  characters  in  the  natural 


174  SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS. 


PACK 


sciences  —  The  most  important  character  is  the  least 
variable — Examples  in  botany  and  in  geology — It  brings, 
and  bears  off  with  it,  more  important  and  less  variable 
characters — Examples  in  zoology — It  is  less  variable  be- 
cause it  is  more  elementary — Examples  in  zoology  and 
in  botany  ......  201 

n.  Application  of  the  principle  to  the  moral  man — Means  of 
determining  the  order  of  the  subordination  of  characters 
in  the  moral  man — Degree  of  their  variability  measured 
by  history — Order  of  their  stability — Transient  and  fash- 
ionable characters — Examples — Characters  which  last  a 
semi-historic  period — Examples — Characters  which  last 
a  full  historic  period — Examples — Characters  which  last 
the  life  of  a  people — Examples — Characters  common  to 
people  of  the  same  stock — Characters  common  to  the 
highest  humanity — The  most  stable  characters  are  the 
most  elementary — Examples  .  .  .  .210 

ill.  The  scale  of  literary  values  corresponds  to  this  scale  of 
moral  values — Transient  and  fashionable  literature — 
Current  literature.— The  "Astr6e,"  the  "Cle'lie,"  the 
"Euphues,"  the  "Adone,"  "Hudibras,"  and  "Atala." 
— Proof  and  counter-proof  of  the  law — Superior  isolated 
works  among  inferior  works  of  the  same  author:  "Gil 
Bias,"  "  Manon  Lescaut,"  "Don  Quixote,"  and  "  Robin- 
son Crusoe."— Inferior  parts  in  the  work  of  a  superior 
writer,  as  the  marquises  of  Racine,  and  Shal  espeare's 
downs  and  cavaliers — The  stability  and  profundity  of 
characters  manifested  by  great  literary  works — Proof  de- 
rived from  the  modern  use  of  literary  productions  in 
history — Hindoo  poems,  Spanish  romances,  and  dramatic 
works,  the  drama  of  Racine,  and  the  epics  of  Dante  and 
Goethe — Universality  of  characters  expressed  by  certain 
works — The  "Psalms,"  the  "Imitation  of  Christ," 
Homer,  Plato,  and  Shakespeare — "Robinson  Crusoe," 
"Candide,"  and  "Don  Quixote."  .  .  .226 

iv.  Application  of  the  same  principle  to  the  physical  man — 
Highly  variable  characters  in  the  physical  man — Fashion- 
able dress — Dress  in  general— Peculiarities  of  profession 


SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS.  175 

MOB 

and  condition— The  imprint  of  historical  epochs — Inade- 
quacy of  history  to  measure  the  variability  of  physical 
characters — Substitution  of  the  elementary  character  for 
the  stable  character — Profound  and  intimate  characteris- 
tics of  the  physical  man — The  system  of  muscles — The 
vitalized  skin — Diversities  of  race  and  temperament  .  241 

v.  The  scale  of  plastic  values  corresponds  to  the  scale  of 
physical  values — Works  representing  the  dress  of  the 
day,  and  dress  in  general — Works  manifesting  historical 
peculiarities  of  profession,  condition,  character,  and 
epoch — Hogarth  and  the  English  painters — The  epochs 
of  Italian  painting — The  age  of  infancy — The  age  of 
maturity — The  age  of  decline — Works  here  are  more  or 
less  perfect  according  as  the  sentiment  of  physical  life  is 
more  or  less  dominant — The  law  the  same  in  other 
schools — Diverse  races  and  temperaments  expressed  by 
diverse  schools — The  Florentine  type,  the  Venetian  type, 
the  Flemish  type,  the  Spanish  type  ...  248 

vi  Conclusion — The  character  communicates  to  the  work  its 
degree  of  importance  .....  260 

§11. 

THE  DEGREE  OF  BENEFICENCE  IN  THE  CHARACTER. 

i.  Relationship  and  distinction  between  the  two  points  of 
view — In  what  the  beneficence  of  a  moral  character  con- 
sists—  In  the  individual — Intelligence  and  Will — In 
society — The  power  of  Love — Order  of  beneficent  values 
in  moral  character  .....  265 

ii.  Corresponding  order  of  literary  values — Types  of  realistic 
or  comic  literature — Examples — Henri  Monnier — The 
picaresque  romances — Balzac — Fielding — Walter  Scott — 
Moliere — Processes  employed  by  great  writers  to  remedy 
the  inadequacy  of  infe-ior  personages — Types  of  dramatic 
and  philosophic  literature — Shakespeare  and  Balzac — 
Types  of  epic  and  popular  literature—  Heroes  and  Gods  273 

OI.  Order  of  beneficent  values  in  physical  character — Health 
— The  natural  type  in  its  integrity — Athletic  aptitudes 


176  8YNOP8I8  OF  CONTENTS. 


FA3B. 


and  gymnastic  preparation  —  The  indication  of  moral 
nobility — Limits  within  which  the  plastic  arts  may  ex- 
press the  life  of  the  spirit  ....  286 

IV  Corresponding  order  of  plastic  values — Unhealthy,  de- 
formed, or  morbid  types — Antique  sculpture  during  the 
decadence  —  Byzantine  art  —  Mediaeval  art  —  Types 
healthy,  but  still  imperfect,  vulgar,  or  coarse — The 
Italian  painters  of  the  fifteenth  century — Rembrandt — 
The  minor  Flemings — Rubens — Superior  types — The 
Venetian  masters  —  The  Florentine  masters  —  The 
masters  of  Athens  .....  291 

V.  Conclusion — The  importance  and  beneficence  of  charac- 
ters in  nature  considered — Superior  harmonies  of  nature 
and  of  art  .  .  .  .  .  307 

§111. 
THE  CONVERGING  DEGREE  OF  EFFECTS. 

I.  The  various  elements  of  the  literary  work — Character- 

Its  elements  —  Action  —  Its  elements  —  Style  —  It« 
elements  —  General  convergence  of  character,  action 
and  style  ......  312 

II.  The  different  moments  of  a  literary  period  are  determined 

by  the  preceding  law — Commencement  of  literary  ages 
— Incomplete  convergence  arising  from  ignorance — The 
"chansons  de  Geste" — Early  Engh'sh  dramatists — The 
end  of  literary  ages — Incomplete  convergence  through 
incongruities — Euripides  and  Voltaire — The  centre  of 
literary  ages  —  Complete  convergence  —  Mschylna  — 
Racine — Shakespeare  .....  324 

III.  The  various  elements  of  a  plastic  work — The  body  and 
its  elements — The  architecture  of  lines  and  its  elements 
— Coloring  and  its  elements — How  all  elements  may 
converge  ....  .  333 

IV.  The  various  moments  of  the  history  of  art  are  determined 
by  the  preceding  law — Primitive  epochs — Incomplete 
convergence  through    ignorance  —  The   symbolic  and 
mystic  schools  of  Italy — Giotto — The  realist  and  anatom- 


SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS.  177 

HMH 
ical  painters  of  Italy — The  precursors  of  Da  Viaci — 

Epochs  of  decadence — Incomplete  convergence  through 
incongruities — The  Caracci  and  their  successors  in  Italy 
— The  imitators  of  the  Italian  style  in  Flanders — Floor* 
ishing  epochs — Complete  convergence — Da  Vinci — The 
Venetians— Raphael  —  Correggio—  Universality  of  the 
law  .  343 

Summary — Principle  of  excellence  and  of  subordination 
in  works  of  art  .  .  .  3' 


ON   THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 


GENTLEMEN: 

IT  seems  as  if  the  subject  to  which  I  am  about 
to  claim  your  attention  could  only  be  treated 
through  poesy.  In  regard  to  the  JLdeal  it  is  the 
heart  which  speaks  ;  we  then  think  of  the  vague 
and  beautiful  dream  by  which  is  expressed  the 
deepest  sentiment ;  we  scarcely  breathe  it  in  the 
lowest  voice,  with  a  kind  of  subdued  enthusiasm ; 
when  we  speak  of  it  otherwise  it  is  in  verse,  in 
a  canticle ;  we  dwell  on  it  reverentially,  with 
clasped  hands,  as  if  it  concerned  happiness, 
heaven,  or  love.  As  to  ourselves,  we  shall,  aa 
usual,  study  it  as  naturalists,  that  is,  methodic- 
ally, analytically,  and  shall  endeavor  to  realize 
aot  an  ode  but  a  law. 


180  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

At  first  we  must  understand  this  word  the 
IdeoL  The  grammatical  explanation  of  it  is  not 
difficult.  Let  me  recall  the  definition  of  a  work 
of  art  which  we  gave  at  the  beginning  of  this 
course.*  On  that  occasion  we  said  that  the  aim 


of  a  work  of  art  was  to  make  known  some  lead- 
ing and  important  character  more  effectually  and 
clearly  than  objects  themselves  do.  For  that 
purpose  the  artist  forms  for  himself  an  idea  of 
that  character,  and  according  to  his  idea  he 
transforms  the  actual  object.  This  object  thus 
transformed  is  found  to  conform  to  tJie  idea,  or, 
in  other  words,  to  the  ideal.  Things  thus  pass 
from  the  real  to  the  ideal  when  the  artist  re- 
produces them  by  modifying  them  according  to 
his  idea,  and  he  modifies  them  according  to  his 
idea  when,  conceiving  and  eliminating  from  them 
some  notable  character,  he  systematically  changes 
the  natural  relationships  of  their  parts  in  order 
to  render  this  character  more  apparent  and  pow- 
erful 


•  See  the  Philosophy  of  Art,  page  61. 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 


Among  the  ideas  which  artists  impart  to  their 
models  are  there  any  which  take  the  lead  oi 
others?  Can  we  point  out  any  one  character 
which  is  superior  to  all  the  others  ?  Is  there  for 
each  object  an  ideal  form  outside  of  which  all  is 
deviation  or  error?  Can  we  discover  a  princi- 
ple of  subordination  by  which  to  assign  rank  to 
the  diverse  productions  of  art  ? 

At  the  first  glance  we  are  tempted  to  say, 
no ;  the  definition  which  we  have  given  seems  to 
bar  the  way  to  this  investigation  ;  it  leads  one 
to  believe  that  all  the  works  of  art  are  on  a  level, 
and  that  the  scope  of  art  is  an  open  question. 
In  short,  if  the  object  becomes  ideal  in  that  it  is 
alone  conformable  to  the  idea,  the  idea  is  of 
little  consequence;  the  choice  lies  with  the 
artist ;  he  will  choose  this  or  that  according  to 
his  taste  ;  we  shall  have  no  claim  on  him.  The 
same  subject  may  be  treated  in  this  form  or  in 
another,  or  in  all  intermediate  forms.  Better 


182  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

still,  it  seems  that  here  history  is  in  keeping 
with  logic,  and  that  theory  is  in  conformity  with 
the  facts.  Let  us  consider  different  centuries, 
different  nations  and  different  schools.  Artists 
differing  in  race,  in  mind  and  in  education,  are 
differently  impressed  by  the  same  object ;  each 
one  sees  it  from  his  own  point  of  view ;  each 
one  perceives  in  it  a  distinct  character;  each 
one  forms  for  himself  an  original  idea  of  it,  and 
this  idea,  manifested  in  the  new  work,  immedi- 
ately stands  forth  a  new  masterpiece  in  the  gal- 
lery of  ideal  forms,  like  a  new  divinity  in  an  Olym- 
pus heretofore  regarded  as  complete. — Plautus 
places  the  poor  miser  Euclion  on  the  stage ;  Mo- 
liere  takes  up  the  same  personage  also,  and 
places  there  the  rich  miser  Harpagon.  Two 
centuries  later  the  miser,  not  stupid  and  taunted 
as  formerly,  but  redoubtable  and  triumphant,  be- 
comes old  Grandet  in  the  hands  of  Balzac,  and 
the  same  miser  taken  from  the  provinces  and 
becoming  Parisian,  cosmopolite  and  a  drawing- 
room  poet,  furnishes  the  same  Balzac  the  usurer 
Gobseck. — One  situation  alone,  that  of  a  fathei 


ON  TUB  IDEAL  Ltf  ART.  183 

maltreated  by  his  ungrateful  children,  suggested 
the  (Edipus  of  Sophocles,  Shakespeare's  King 
Lear  and  Balzac's  Pere  Goriot. — Every  romance 
and  every  drama  represents  some  young  man 
and  young  woman  in  love  with  each  other  and 
anxious  to  be  married;  under  how  many  dif- 
ferent forms  have  this  same  couple  been  pre- 
sented from  Shakespeare  to  Dickens  and  from 
Madame  de  Lafayette  to  George  Sand.  The 
lo\ers,  the  father,  the  miser,  all  the  great  types 
can  therefore  be  always  reproduced ;  they  have 
been  so  uninterruptedly  and  will  still  continue 
to  be  so,  and  it  is  truly  the  appropriate  and  sole 
glory,  the  hereditary  necessity  of  true  genius  to 
create  such  characters  outside  of  the  conven- 
tional and  traditional  order  of  things. 

If,  after  literary  productions,  we  regard  the 
arts  of  design,  the  right  of  selecting  at  will  this 
or  that  character  appears  to  be  still  better 
founded.  A  dozen  or  so  of  evangelical  or  mytho- 
logical subjects  or  personages  have  been  equal 
to  the  wants  of  high  art;  the  arbitrary  will  of 
the  artist  declares  itself  here  not  only  by  a  di- 


]  84  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

versity  of  works,  but  by  complete  success.  We 
dare  not  praise  one  more  than  another,  we  dare 
not  place  one  perfect  work  above  another,  we 
dare  not  say  that  we  should  follow  Rembrandt 
rather  than  Veronese,  or  Veronese  rather  than 
Rembrandt.  And  yet  what  a  contrast !  In  the 
"Feast  of  Emmaus"*  the  Christ  of  Rembrandt 
is  a  resuscitated,  cadaverous,  sallow,  and  dolor- 
ous figure,  who  has  experienced  the  chill  of  the 
grave,  and  whose  sad  and  benignant  look  fixes 
itself  once  more  on  human  misery.  Near  tc 
this  figure  are  two  disciples,  old  worn-out  labor- 
ers with  bald  and  blanched  heads,  seated  at 
the  table  of  a  common  inn,  a  little  stable-boy 
looking  on  with  a  vacant  air,  while  around  the 
head  of  the  revived  Redeemer  shines  the  pe- 
culiar radiance  of  the  other  world.  In  the 
"  Christ  of  the  Hundred  Florins"  the  same  idea 
reappears  more  vividly.  This,  indeed,  is  the 
Christ  of  the  people,  the  Saviour  of  the  poor, 


*  See  this  picture  in  the  Louvre ;  the  engraved  sketch  is 
lomewhat  different 


ON  TEE  IDEAL  IN  ART  185 

standing  in  one  of  those  Flemish  caverns,  where 
the  Lollards  once  prayed  and  wove;  ragged 
mendicants  and  hospital  outcasts  extend  toward 
him  their  suppliant  hands :  a  coarse  peasant- 
woman,  kneeling,  looks  at  him  with  the  staring 
and  fixed  eyes  of  deep  faith;  a  paralytic  is 
brought  stretched  across  a  barrow  —  tattered 
clothes,  old  greasy  mantles  faded  by  exposure, 
scrofulous  and  deformed  bodies,  pale,  wan,  bru- 
talized faces,  a  sorrowful  mass  of  ugliness  and 
disease,  a  sort  of  human  sty  which  the  favored  of 
the  age,  fat  citizens  and  a  corpulent  burgo- 
master, gaze  on  with  insolent  indifference,  but 
over  which  the  benignant  Christ  stretches  Hia 
healing  hands  whilst  His  supernatural  light 
penetrates  the  shadows,  and  radiates  even  to 
the  dripping  walls. — If  poverty,  sadness,  and 
gloom,  flecked  with  vague  lights,  have  furnished 
masterpieces ;  wealth,  mirth,  and  the  warm  and 
beaming  light  of  open  day  furnish  kindred  mas- 
terpieces. Look  at  the  three  feasts  of  Christ 
by  Veronese,  at  Venice  and  in  the  Louvre.  The 
open  sky  expands  above  an  architecture  of  balus 


186  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

trades,  colonnades,  and  statues ;  glittering  white- 
ness, and  the  surfaces  of  variegated  marbles,  frame 
an  assemblage  of  lords  and  ladies  enjoying  a 
feast,  a  Venetian  public  banquet  of  the  sixteenth 
century;  Christ  sits  in  the  centre,  and  in  long 
rows  around  Him,  nobles  in  silken  pourpoints, 
princesses  in  brocade  robes  eat  and  laugh, 
while  greyhounds,  negroes,  dwarfs,  and  mu- 
sicians attract  the  eyes  or  the  ears  of  the  at- 
tendant company.  Simarres,  woven  with  black 
and  silver,  undulate  by  the  side  of  velvet  skirts 
embroidered  with  gold ;  collars  of  lace  encircle 
the  satiny  whiteness  of  necks ;  pearls  gleam  on 
blonde  tresses ;  blooming  carnations  lead  one  to 
divine  the  force  of  youthful  blood  flowing  easily 
and  in  full  veins ;  intelligent  and  vivacious  faces 
are  on  the  verge  of  a  smile,  while  upon  the  sil- 
very or  rosy  lustre  of  the  general  tint  golden 
yellows,  deep  blues,  intense  scarlet,  rayed  greens 
and  broken  and  uniform  tones  complete,  in  their 
elegant  and  exquisite  harmony,  the  poesy  of  this 
aristocratic  and  voluptuous  display. 
On  the  other  hand  what  is  there  better  deter- 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  187 

mined  than  the  pagan  Olympus?  Greek  statu- 
ary and  literature  have  clearly  defined  all  ita 
contours ;  it  seems  that,  in  its  place,  every  inno- 
vation was  prohibited,  every  form  fixed,  and  all 
invention  circumscribed.  And  yet  each  painter, 
in  transferring  it  to  his  canvas,  makes  a  charac- 
ter predominate  there  hitherto  unrecognized. 
The  "Parnassus"  of  Kaphael  offers  to  the  eye 
lovely  young  women  of  a  sweetness  and  grace 
perfectly  human ;  an  Apollo  who,  with  heaven- 
ward eyes,  is  lost  in  listening  to  the  sound  of 
his  own  lyre ;  a  symmetrical  architecture  of 
chaste  harmonious  forms,  modest  nudities  which 
the  sober  and  almost  dull  tone  of  the  fresco 
renders  still  more  modest.  With  opposite  char- 
acters Rubens  repeats  the  same  work.  Nothing 
is  less  antique  than  his  mythology.  In  his 
hands  Greek  divinities  have  become  Flemish 
bodies  with  a  sanguine  and  lymphatic  pulpiness, 
and  his  celestial  banquets  resemble  the  masques 
which,  at  the  same  epoch,  Ben  Jonson  arranged 
for  the  court  of  James  I. :  bold  nudities  doubly 
anhanced  by  the  splendor  of  falling  draperies; 


188  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

fat,  white  Venuses  holding  captive  their  lovers 
with  a  courtezan's  abandoned  air ;  arch  and  sly 
Ceres  in  smiles ;  plump  and  palpitating  backs  of 
writhing  sirens  ;  mellow  and  extended  inflexions 
of  the  pliant,  living  muscle ;  the  fury  of  trans- 
port, the  impetuosity  of  desire,  the  sumptuous 
display  of  an  unbridled  and  conquering  sensu- 
ality, which  the  temperament  feeds,  which  is 
unchecked  by  conscience,  which  becomes  poetic 
in  remaining  animal,  and,  through  an  unusual 
concurrence,  merges  in  its  pleasures  all  the  im- 
munities of  nature  and  all  the  pomp  of  civili- 
zation. 

The  culminating  point  is  here  again  reached ; 
"lusty  good  humor"  surrounds  and  pervades 
all ;  "  the  wings  of  this  Flemish  Titan  were  so 
strong  that  he  rose  upward  to  the  sun,  although 
quintals  of  Dutch  cheese  hung  to  his  legs."* — 
If,  finally,  instead  of  comparing  two  artists  of  a 
different  race,  you  restrict  yourselves  to  the 
same  nation,  revert  to  the  Italian  works  that  I 

•  Heine's  ReisebMer,  voL  i.,  p.  154. 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  1S9 

have  described  to  you,  namely,  the  Crucifixions, 
the  Nativities,  the  Annunciations,  the  Madonnas 
and  Infants,  the  Jupiters,  the  Apollos,  the  Ve- 
nuses  and  the  Dianas  ;  and,  in  order  to  render 
your  impressions  clear,  to  the  same  scene  treated 
by  three  masters,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Michael 
Angelo,  and  Correggio.  I  refer  to  their  "Ledas," 
the  three  engravings  of  which  you  are,  at  least, 
familiar  with.  The  "  Leda"  of  Da  Vinci  is  erect, 
modest,  the  eyes  downcast,  and  the  sinuous, 
serpentine  lines  of  her  beautiful  body  undulate 
with  a  regal  and  subtle  elegance ;  with  a  conju- 
gal turn,  the  swan,  almost  human,  envelopes  her 
with  his  wing,  and  the  little  pair  nestling  along- 
side of  her  have  the  oblique  eye  of  that  bird; 
nowhere  is  the  mystery  of  ancient  days,  the 
profound  relation  between  man  and  animal,  the 
vague  pagan  and  philosophic  sentiment  of  the 
unity  and  universality  of  life  expressed  with 
more  accurate  research,  and  disclosing  the  div- 
inations of  a  more  penetrating  and  comprehen- 
sive genius. — The  "  Leda"  of  Michael  Angelo,  on 
the  contrary,  is  a  queen  of  a  colossal  and  nrli- 


190  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

tant  race,  a  sister  of  those  sublime  virgins  whc 
slumber,  exhausted,  in  the  chapel  of  the  Medi- 
cis,  or  awake  painfully  to  commence  again  the 
struggle  of  life ;  her  large,  elongated  form  has 
the  same  muscles  and  the  same  structure ;  her 
cheeks  are  sunken ;  there  is  not  the  faintest 
trace  in  her  of  joy  or  abandonment ;  even  in  a 
moment  like  this  she  is  grave,  almost  sombre. 
The  tragic  soul  of  Michael  Angelo  puts  motion 
into  those  athletic  limbs,  throws  back  that  heroic 
torso,  and  renders  rigid  that  fixed  look  beneath 
that  frowning  brow. — The  age  changes,  and  virile 
sentiments  give  place  to  feminine  sentiments. 
With  Correggio  the  scene  becomes  a  bath  of 
young  girls  under  the  soft  green  shade  of  the 
trees,  and  amidst  the  gentle  flow  of  a  rippling 
and  murmuring  stream.  Every  thing  is  both 
seductive  and  attractive;  complete  voluptuous- 
ness, the  happy  dream,  the  sweet  grace,  never  ex- 
panded or  moved  the  soul  by  a  more  penetrating 
and  effective  language.  The  beauty  of  form  and 
of  head  is  not  noble,  but  lovely  and  endearing. 
Full  and  smiling,  with  the  lustre  of  satin,  with 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  191 

^40  brilliancy  of  flowers  lit  up  by  the  sun,  the 
'jloom  of  the  most  blooming  youth  enhances  tho 
delicate  whiteness  of  their  flesh  impregnated 
with  light.  One,  blonde,  complacent,  with  th 
equivocal  torso  and  hair  of  a  youth,  chases  away 
the  swan;  another,  arch  and  pretty,  holds  the 
chemise  into  which  her  companion  enters,  while 
the  aerial  tissue  which  lightly  covers  her  scarcely 
veils  the  full  contours  of  her  lovely  form ;  others, 
frolicsome,  with  low  brows,  large  lips,  and  promi- 
nent chins,  play  in  the  water  with  an  abandon- 
ment at  once  riotous  and  enticing.  Still  more 
abandoned,  and  content  to  be  so,  Leda  smiles 
and  yields ;  and  thus  the  intoxicating  exquisite 
sensation  which  is  derived  from  the  whole  scene 
overflows  in  her  ecstasy  and  transport. 

Which  is  to  be  preferred  ?  And  which  is  the 
superior  character,  the  charming  grace  of  exces- 
sive happiness,  the  tragic  grandeur  of  haughty 
energy,  or  the  depth  of  intelligent  and  refined 
sympathy  ?  All  correspond  to  some  essential 
portion  of  human  nature,  or  to  some  essential 
moment  of  human  development.  Joy  and  sad- 


192  ON  TEE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

ness,  sound  reason  and  mystic  revery,  active 
energy  or  refined  sensibility,  lofty  aspirations 
of  the  restless  intellect  and  the  broad  expansion 
of  animal  delight,  all  the  important  parts  in 
the  province  of  life  have  their  value.  Centuries 
and  entire  nations  have  been  engaged  in  bring- 
ing them  to  light ;  what  history  has  manifested 
art  takes  up,  and,  as  the  various  natural  crea- 
tures, whatever  may  be  their  structure  and  their 
instincts,  find  their  place  in  the  world  and  an 
explanation  in  science,  so  the  various  works  of 
the  human  imagination,  whatever  may  be  the 
principle  which  animates  them,  and  the  direc- 
tion which  they  manifest,  find  their  justification 
in  discriminating  sympathy  and  their  place  in 
art 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART  193 


n. 

And  yet  in  the  imaginary  world  as  in  the  real 
world  there  are  different  degrees  because  there 
are  different  values.  The  public  and  connois- 
seurs determine  some  and  estimate  others.  We 
have  done  nothing  but  this  for  three  years  in 
traversing  five  centuries  of  Italian  painting. 
We  have  always,  and  at  every  step,  pronounced 
judgment.  Without  knowing  it  we  held  a 
measuring  instrument  in  our  hands.  ^HherjEoen 
do  as  wo  do,  and  iu  criticism,  as  elsewhere,  there 
are  ascertained  truths.  Every  man  now  recog- 
nizes that  certain  poets  like  Dante  and  Shakes- 
peare, certain  composers  like  Mozart  and  Beeth- 
oven occupy  the  highest  places  in  their  art. 
Among  all  the  writers  of  our  century  this  place 
is  given  to  Goethe.  Among  the  Flemings,  every 
one  awards  it  to  Rubens ;  among  the  Dutch  to 
Rembrandt ;  among  the  Germans  to  Albert 
Durer ;  among  the  Venetians  to  Titian.  Three 
artists  of  the  Italian  renaissance,  Leonardo  da 


194  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

Yinci,  Michael  Angelo  and   Baphael,  rise,  by 


unanimous  consent,  above  all  the  rest. — More- 


over, these  definitive  Judgments  which  posterity 
pronounces  are  confirmed  in  their  justice  by 
the  way  in  which  they  are  rendered.  In  the 
first  place  the  contemporaries  of  the  artist  unite 
to  judge  him,  and  this  judgment,  in  which  so  many 
differing  minds,  temperaments,  and  educations 
have  concurred,  is  important,  because  the  in- 
adequacy of  each  individual  taste  has  been 
supplemented  by  the  diversities  of  others'  tastes ; 
prejudices,  coming  in  conflict  with  each  other 
are  balanced,  and  this  continuous  and  mutual 
compensation  gradually  brings  the  final  result 
nearer  to  the  truth.  This  done,  another  cen- 
tury continues  the  work  in  a  new  vein,  and  then 
after  this,  another;  each  revises  the  litigated 
point,  each  doing  it  from  his  own  point  of  view ; 
all  are  so  many  profound  rectifications  and 
powerful  combinations.  When  the  work,  after 
thus  having  passed  from  court  to  court  issues 
from  them,  determined  in  the  same  manner,  and 
the  judges,  stationed  along  the  line  of  centuries 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  195 

agree  in  the  same  verdict,  the  sentence,  proba- 
bly, is  just;  for,  if  the  work  were  not  superior, 
it  would  not  have  drawn  together  so  many  dif« 
ferent  sympathies  in  such  a  decision.  If  the 
limitation  of  mind  peculiar  to  epochs  and  to 
nations  leads  them  sometimes,  like  individuals, 
to  judge  and  comprehend  badly,  here,  as  in  the 
case  of  individuals,  the  aberrations  being  rec- 
tified and  the  deviations  being  annulled  by  each 
other,  they  tend  gradually  to  that  state  of  fixity 
and  of  rectitude,  in  which  opinion  is  found  so 
well  and  legitimately  established,  that  we  may 
adhere  to  it  with  confidence  and  with  reason. 
In  addition,  in  fine,  to  this  conformity  of  instinc- 
tive tastes  the  modern  processes  of  criticism 
come  to  add  the  authority  of  science  to  that  oi 
common  sense.  A  critic  is  now  aware  that  his 
personal  taste  has  no  value,  that  he  must  set 
aside  his  temperament,  inclinations,  party,  and 
interests ;  that,  above  all,  his  talent  lies  in  sym- 
pathy, that  his  first  essay  in  history  should  con- 
sist in  putting  himself  in  the  place  of  the  men 
whom  he  is  desirous  of  judging,  to  entoi  into 


196  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART 

their  instincts  and  habits,  to  espouse  their  senti- 
ments, to  re-think  their  thoughts,  to  reproduce 
within  himself  their  inward  condition,  to  repre- 
sent to  himself  minutely  and  substantially  their 
surroundings,  to  follow  in  imagination  the  cir- 
cumstances and  the  impressions  which,  added 
to  their  innate  tendency,  have  determined  their 
actions  and  guided  their  lives.  Such  a  course, 
in  placing  us  at  an  artistic  point  of  view,  permits 
us  better  to  comprehend  them ;  and  as  it  is  com- 
posed of  analysis,  it  is,  like  every  scientific  ope- 
ration, capable  of  verification  and  perfectibility. 
By  following  this  method  we  have  been  able  to 
approve  and  disapprove  of  this  or  that  artist,  to 
condemn  one  and  praise  another  part  of  the 
same  work,  to  determine  the  nature  of  values,  to 
point  out  progress  or  decline,  to  recognize  pe- 
riods of  bloom  and  decay,  not  arbitrarily,  but 
according  to  a  common  criterion.  It  is  this 
hidden  criterion  that  I  am  going  to  try  to  dis- 
close, to  define,  and  to  demonstrate  to  you. 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  197 

m. 

Let  us  consider,  to  this  end,  the  various  parts 
of  the  definition  which  we  have  given.  To  give 
full  prominence  to  a  leading  character  is  the  ob- 
ject of  a  work  of  art.  It  is  owing  to  this  that 
the  closer  a  work  of  art  approaches  this  point 
the  more  perfect  it  becomes ;  in  other  words  the 
more  exactly  and  completely  these  conditions 
are  complied  with  the  more  elevated  it  becomes 
on  the  scale.  Two  of  these  conditions  are  nec- 
essary ;  it  is  necessary  that  the  character  should 
be  the  most  notable  possible  and  the  most  dom- 
inant possible.  Let  us  study  closely  these  two 
artistic  obligations.  In  order  to  abridge  our  labor 
I  will  examine  only  the  arts  of  imitation,  sculp- 
ture, dramatic  music,  painting  and  literature, 
and  principally  the  two  last.  That  will  suffice  ; 
for  you  know  the  link  which  binds  together  the 
arts  that  imitate  and  the  arts  that  do  not  imi- 
tate!*Both  seek  to  render  dominant  some  nota- 
ble character.  Both  succeed  by  employing  an 

•  See  the  Philosophy  of  Art,  chap.  v.  p.  62. 


198  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

ensemble  of  connected  parts,  the  relationships  of 
which  they  combine  or  modify.  The  only  dif- 
ference is  that  the  arts  of  imitation,  painting, 
sculpture,  and  poesy,  reproduce  organic  and^ 
moral  connections  and  form  works  correspond^ 
big  to  real  objects,  whilst  the  other  arts,  music 
properly  so  called  and  architecture,  combine 
mathematical  relationships  so  as  to  create  works 
that  do  not  correspond  to  real  objects.  But  a 
symphony,  a  temple  thus  constituted  are  living 
beings  like  a  written  poem  or  a  painted  figure ; 
for  they  are  also  organized  beings,  all  the  parts 
of  which  are  mutually  dependent  and  governed 
by  a  guiding  principle ;  they  also  possess  a 
physiognomy,  they  also  manifest  an  intention, 
they  also  speak  through  expression,  they  also 
terminate  in  an  effect.  Under  all  these  headings 
they  are  ideal  creations  of  the  same  order  as  the 
others,  subjected  to  the  same  laws  of  formation 
as  to  the  same  rules  of  criticism ;  they  are  only 
a  distinct  group  in  the  entire  class,  and,  with  a 
restriction  known  by  anticipation,  the  truths 
which  are  alongside  of  them  are  applied  to  them. 


§1. 


THE  DEGKEE  OF  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE 
CHARACTER 


ON  T11K  IDEAL  IN  ART.  201 


What,  then,  is  a  notable  character,  and  how 
at  first,  can  we  know,  two  characters  being 
given,  if  one  is  more  important  than  the  other  ? 
We  find  ourselves  carried  back  by  this  question 
into  the  domain  of  science ;  for  the  question 
here  is  of  beings  in  themselves,  and  it  rightly 
belongs  to  the  sciences  to  take  account  of  the 
characters  composing  this  class  of  beings.  We 
are  obliged  to  make  an  excursion  into  natural 
history ;  I  will  not  apologize  to  you  for  so  doing ; 
if  the  matter  seems,  at  first,  to  be  dry  and  ab- 
stract let  us  overlook  it.  The  relationship  exist- 
big  between  art  and  science  is  asjipnprable  for 
the  one  as  for  the  other ;  it  is  the  glory  of  the 
latter  to  give  to  beauty  its  principal  adjuncts  ;  it 
is  the  glory  of  the  former  to  base  its  noblest 
structures  on  the  truth. 

It  is  about  a  hundred  years  since  the  natural 
sciences  discovered  the  law  of  valuation  which 
we  aio  about  to  borrow  from  them;  namely,  the 


202  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

principle  of  tine,  subordination  of  characters  ;  all  the 
classifications  of  botany  and  of  zoology  have 
been  constructed  according  to  it,  and  its  im- 
portance has  been  demonstrated  by  discoveries 
as  unexpected  as  profound.  In  a  plant,  and  in 
an  animal,  certain  characters  have  been  recog- 
nized as  more  important  than  others;  these 
are  the  least  variable  characters.  In  this  respect 
they  possess  a  force  greater  than  that  of  others.^ 
for  they  better  bear  up  against  the  attack  in 
every  circumstance,  internal  or  external,  which 
might  undo  or  vary  them.  For  example,  in  a 
plant,  shape  and  size  are  less  important  than 
structure ;  for,  inwardly,  certain  accessory  char- 
acters, and,  outwardly,  certain  accessory  condi-_ 
tions,  cause  shape  and  size  to  vary  without 
affecting  Che  structure.  The  pea  that  cling*  to 
the  earth,  and  the  acacia  that  shoots  up  into  the 
air,  are  closely-related  leguminosse;  a  stem  of 
wheat  three  feet  high,  and  a  bamboo  of  thirty 
feet,  are  kindred  graminse;  the  same  fern,  so 
diminutive  in  our  climate,  becomes  a  large  tree 
in  the  tropics. — In  like  manner,  also  in  one  of 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  203 

the  vertebrata,  the  number,  the  arrangement, 
and  the  functions  of  members,  are  less  important 
than  the  possession  of  mammae.  It  may  bo 
aquatic,  terrestrial,  aerial,  and  undergo  all  the 
changes  which  a  change  of  locality  comports, 
without,  on  that  account,  the  structure  which 
renders  it  capable  of  suckling  being  altered  or 
destroyed.  The  bat  and  the  whale  are  mam- 
malia, like  the  dog,  the  horse,  and  man.  The 
formative  forces  which  have  drawn  out  the  mem- 
bers of  the  bat,  and  changed  his  hands  into 
wings ;  which  have  joined,  shortened,  and  almost 
effaced  the  posterior  members  of  the  whale,  have 
not  had  any  effect,  in  one  case  or  in  the  othei; 
on  the  organ  which  gives  to  the  young  its  food 
and  the  flying  mammal  like  the  swimming  mam- 
mal remain  brothers  of  the  mammal  that  walks. — 
Thus  is  it  with  the  whole  scale  of  beings,  and 
with  the  whole  scale  of  characters.  Such  an 
organic  arrangement  is  a  more  onerous  weight, 
because  forces  capable  of  moving  a  lesser  one 
fail  in  doing  BO. 

Consequently,  when  one  of  these  masses  is 


204  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

disturbed,  it  carries  along  with  it  corresponding 
masses.  In  other  words,  one  character  brings 
and  bears  away  with  it  characters  all  the  more 
invariable  and  the  more  important,  because  it  is 
more  invariable  and  more  important  itself.  For 
example,  the  presence  of  the  wing,  being  a 
very  subordinate  character,  carries  with  it  but 
very  slight  modifications,  and  remains  without 
effect  on  the  general  structure.  Animals  of  a 
different  class  may  possess  wings  ;  alongside  of 
birds  are  winged  mammalia  like  bats,  winged 
lizards  like  the  ancient  ptero-dactyl  and  flying 
fishes  like  the  exocetus.  Indeed,  the  arrange- 
ment which  renders  an  animal  able  to  fly  is  of 
so  little  consequence,  that  it  is  met  with  even  in 
different  orders ;  not  only  do  many  of  the  verte- 
brata  have  wings,  but,  again,  many  of  the  articu- 
lata;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  this  power  is  so 
little  important  that  it  is  in  turn  present  or  ab- 
sent in  the  same  class ;  five  families  of  insects 
fly,  and  one,  that  of  the  aptera  does  not  fly. — On 
the  contrary,  the  presence  of  mammae,  being  a 
very  important  character,  bears  with  it  important 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  205 

modifications  and  in  its  principal  traits  deter- 
mines the  structure  of  the  animal.  All  the  mam- 
mifers  belong  to  the  same  division ;  as  soon  as 
a  mammifer  appears,  it  is  necessarily  one  of  the 
vertebrata.  Moreover,  the  presence  of  mammae 
is  always  accompanied  by  a  double  circulation, 
viviparous  birth,  and  a  membranous  lining  of  the 
lungs  which  the  rest  of  the  vertebrata,  birds,  rep- 
tiles, fishes,  and  amphibious  organisms,  exclude. 
In  general  read  the  name  of  a  class,  of  a  family, 
of  any  order  of  natural  beings ;  the  name  which 
expresses  the  essential  character  shows  you  the 
organic  feature  selected  as  its  sign.  Then  read 
the  two  or  three  lines  following  it :  you  will 
therein  find  enumerated  a  series  of  characters 
which  are  for  the  former  inseparable  accom- 
paniments, and  whose  importance  and  number 
measure  the  grandeur  of  the  masses  which  come 
and  go  along  with  it. 

If  now  we  attempt  to  get  at  the  reason  which 
gives  superior  importance  and  invariability  to 
certain  characters  it  will  generally  be  found  in 
what  follows :  in  a  living  being  there  are  two 


206  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

parts,  the  elements  and  their  combination ;  the 
combination  is  ulterior  while  the  elements  are 
primitive ;  we  may  derange  the  combination 
without  affecting  the  elements ;  we  cannot  altei 
the  elements  without  deranging  the  combination. 
We  must  accordingly  distinguish  two  sorts  of 
characters,  some  profound,  innate,  original,  fun- 
damental, which  are  those  of  the  elements  or 
materials;  the  others  superficial,  external,  de- 
rived and  superposed,  those  of  combination  or 
arrangement.  Such  is  the  principle  of  the 
most  fruitful  theory  of  the  natural  sciences, 
that  of  analogy,  by  which  Geoffrey  St.  Hi- 
laire  has  explained  the  structure  of  animals 
and  Goethe  the  structure  of  plants.  In  the 
skeleton  of  an  animal  it  is  necessary  to  point 
out  two  series  of  characters,  the  one  which  com- 
prises the  anatomical  elements  and  their  con- 
nexions, the  other  comprehending  their  elonga- 
tions, their  contractions,  their  jointures  and 
their  adaptation  to  this  or  that  function.  The 
former  are  primitive  and  the  latter  are  derived ; 
tLo  same  articulations  with  the  same  relation- 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  207 

ships  appear  in  the  arm  of  man,  in  the  wing  of 
the  bat,  in  the  vertebral  column  of  the  horse,  in 
the  leg  of  the  cat  and  in  the  fin  of  a  whale ; 
elsewhere,  as  in  the  slow-worm  and  the  boa-con- 
strictor, parts  become  useless,  subsist  in  a  rudi- 
mentary state,  and  these  being  conserved,  as 
well  as  the  unity  of  the  plan  being  maintained, 
bear  witness  to  the  elementary  forces  which  all 
subsequent  transformations  have  been  unable  to 
abolish. — In  the  same  manner  it  has  been  shown 
that,  primitively  and  fundamentally,  all  the  parts 
of  a  flower  are  leaves;  and  this  distinction  of 
two  natures,  the  one  essential,  the  other  acces- 
sory, has  accounted  for  abortions,  monstrosities, 
analogies,  as  numerous  as  obscure,  by  opposing 
the  inner  web  of  the  living  tissue  to  the  folds, 
seams  and  amplifications  which  go  to  hide  and 
diversify  it. — A  general  rule  proceeds  from  these 
partial  manifestations,  seeing  that  in  order  to 
unravel  the  most  important  character,  we  must 
consider  being  in  its  origin  or  in  its  constituents ; 
to  observe  it  in  its  simplest  form  as  is  the  case 
in  embryogeny,  or  to  mark  distinctive  characters 


208  OJV  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

which  are  common  to  its  elements,  as  is  done  in 
anatomy  and  general  physiology.  In  short  it  is 
according  to  the  characters  furnished  by  the  em- 
bryo, or  according  to  the  mode  of  development 
common  to  all  the  parts,  that  the  immense  body 
of  plants  is  now  classified ;  these  two  characters 
are  of  such  great  importance  that  they  mutually 
involve  each  other,  and  contribute,  both  of  them, 
to  establish  the  same  classification.  According 
as  the  embryo  is,  or  is  not  provided  with  small 
primitive  leaves ;  according  as  it  possesses  one  or 
two  of  these  leaves  it  takes  its  place  in  one  of 
the  three  divisions  of  the  vegetable  kingdom. 
If  it  has  two  of  these  leaves  its  stem  is  formed 
of  concentric  layers,  and  harder  in  the  centre 
than  at  the  circumference  ;  its  root  is  supplied  by 
the  primary  axis,  and  its  floral  verticils  are  com- 
posed, almost  always,  of  two  or  five  pieces,  or 
of  their  multiples.  If  it  has  but  one  of  these 
leaves  its  stem  is  formed  of  scattered  groups 
and  is  found  softer  in  the  centre  than  at  the  cir- 
cumference its  root  is  supplied  by  the  secondary 
axis,  and  its  floral  verticils  are  composed  almost 


OX  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  2U(J 

always  of  three  pieces  or  of  their  multiples. 
Correspondences  as  general  and  as  stable  are 
met  with  in  the  animal  kingdom  ;  and  the  con- 
clusion which,  at  the  end  of  their  labor,  the 
natural  sciences  bequeath  to  the  moral  sciences 
is  that  characters  are  more  or  less  important 
according  as  they  are  forces  more  or  less  great ; 
that  the  measure  of  their  force  is  found  in  the 
degree  of  their  resistance  to  the  attack;  that, 
therefore,  their  greater  or  less  invariability 
gives  them  a  higher  or  lower  hierarchical  po- 
sition; and  that,  in  short,  their  invariability  is 
all  the  greater  when  they  constitute  in  being 
a  more  profound  substratum,  and  belong  not  to 
its  combination  but  to  its  elements. 


210  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 


n. 


Let  us  apply  this  principle  to  man ;  at  first  to 
the  moral  man  and  to  the  arts  which  take  him 
for  object ;  that  is  to  say  to  dramatic  music,  to  the 
romance,  to  the  drama,  to  the  epic  and  to  liter- 
ature in  general.  What  constitutes  the  order  of 
the  importance  of  charactess,  and  how  verify  their 
different  degrees  of  variability?  History  sup- 
plies us  with  very  sure  and  very  simple  means ; 
for  events,  in  working  upon  man,  modify  in  vari- 
ous proportions  the  various  layers  of  ideas  and 
of  sentiments  which  we  remark  in  him.  Time 
scores  us  and  furrows  us  as  a  pickaxe  the  soil, 
and  thus  exposes  our  moral  geology ;  under  its 
action  our  superposed  surfaces  disappear  in  turn, 
some  faster  and  others  more  slowly.  The  earliest 
strokes  of  the  pick  easily  scratch  off  a  loose  soil, 
a  sort  of  soft  alluvion  and  wholly  external ;  later 
come  harder  packed  gravel  and  thicker  beds  of 
sand  which,  in  order  to  disappear,  require  more 
prolonged  labor.  Lower  down  stretch  layers  of 


0JV  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  211 

calcareous  stone,  marbles  and  shale  all  immova- 
ble and  compact ;  entire  ages  of  continuous  labor, 
profound  excavations  and  repeated  blastings  are 
necessary  in  oi'der  to  effect  results.  Lower  down 
still  is  buried  at  immeasurable  distances,  the 
primitive  granite,  the  support  of  the  rest,  and, 
powerful  as  the  attack  of  centuries  may  be,  time 
fails  entirely  to  remove  it. 

On  the  surface  of  man  are  grafted  manners, 
ideas,  a  kind  of  character  which  lasts  three  or 
four  years,  such  as  that  of  fashion  and  the  pass- 
ing hour.  A  traveller  who  has  been  to  America 
or  to  China  finds  that  Paris  is  not  the  same 
Paris  he  left  behind  him.  He  feels  like  a  pro- 
vincialist  and  an  exile ;  the  pleasures  of  life  wear 
a  changed  aspect;  the  vocabulary  of  the  clubs 
and  of  the  minor  theatres  is  different ;  the  ex- 
quisite who  rules  in  matters  of  fashion  has  no 
longer  the  same  sort  of  elegance;  he  displays 
other  vests  and  other  cravats ;  his  scandals  and 
his  follies  are  manifested  in  another  way;  his 
name  itself  is  even  a  novelty,  he  becomes  in  turn 
the  pctit-maitre,  the  fop,  the  coxcomb,  the  dandy, 


212  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

the  lion,  the  gandin,  the  cocodes  and  k  petit  creve 
A  few  years  suffice  to  sweep  away  and  replace 
the  name  and  the  thing ;  the  variations  of  the 
toilette  measure  the  variations  of  this  sort  of 
creature ;  among  all  the  varieties  of  man  it  is  thf 
most  superficial  and  empty.  Below  this  we  find 
a  substratum  of  character  a  little  more  solid ;  it 
lasts  twenty,  thirty,  and  forty  years,  about  the 
half  of  a  historic  period.  We  have  just  seen  the 
end  of  one,  that  which  had  its  centre  in  i*he  so- 
ciety of  1830.  You  will  find  its  representative 
personage  in  the  "  Antony"  of  Alexander  Dumas, 
in  the  young  heroes  of  the  drama  of  Victor  Hugo, 
in  the  souvenirs  and  narratives  of  your  uncles 
and  of  your  fathers.  It  refers  to  the  man  of 
strong  passions  and  sombre  reveries,  to  the  en- 
thusiast and  the  poet,  to  the  politician  and  the 
revolutionist,  to  the  humanitarian  and  the  inno- 
vator, the  would-be  consumptive,  the  seeming 
fatalist,  wearing  the  tragic  vests  and  the  pompous 
hair  to  be  seen  in  the  engravings  of  Deve"ria ;  he 
now  seems  to  us  at  once  bombastic  and  artless, 
hut  we  cannot  refuse  to  recognize  him  as  being 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  213 

ardent  and  magnanimous.  In  short  he  is  the 
plebeian  of  a  new  class,  richly  endowed  with 
faculties  and  with  desires,  who,  having  for  the 
first  time  attained  to  the  heights  of  society  bois- 
terously displays  the  trouble  of  his  mind  and  of 
his  heart.  His  sentiments  and  his  ideas  are  those 
of  an  entire  generation ;  hence  it  is  that  an  entire 
generation  has  to  elapse  before  we  can  see  them 
disappear.  This  is  the  second  substratum,  and 
the  time  taken  by  history  to  dispose  of  it  shows 
us  the  degree  of  its  importance  in  showing  us 
the  degree  of  its  depth. 

We  have  now  reached  the  substratum  of  the 
third  order,  which  is  very  vast  and  very  deep, 
The  characters  composing  it  last  a  whole  historic 
period,  like  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Renaissance, 
and  the  Classic  period.  The  same  uniformity 
of  mind  prevailed  then  during  one  or  many  cen- 
turies and  opposed  itself  to  the  secret  assaults, 
to  the  violent  destruction,  to  all  the  sapping  and 
undermining  which,  during  the  whole  period, 
constantly  attacked  it.  Our  grandfathers  wit- 
nessed the  disappearance  of  one  Df  these  periods, 


214  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

that  of  the  Classic  period  which  finished,  as  tc 
politics,  with  the  revolution  of  1789 ;  and,  as  to 
literature,  with  Delille  and  M.  de  Fontanes,  and, 
as  to  religion,  with  the  appearance  of  Joseph  de 
Maistre  and  the  fall  of  Gallicanism.  It  had 
commenced  in  politics  with  Richelieu,  in  litera- 
ture with  Malherbe,  in  religion  with  that  peace- 
ful and  spontaneous  reform  which,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  seventeenth  century,  renewed  French 
Catholicism.  It  has  lasted  nearly  two  centuries, 
and  it  may  be  recognized  by  unmistakable 
signs.  To  the  costume  of  the  cavalier  and  bully, 
which  the  exquisites  of  the  Renaissance  wore, 
succeeds  the  genuine  dress-coat  such  as  is  neces- 
sary for  drawing-rooms  and  the  court ;  the  per- 
ruque,  cuffs,  the  Rhinegrave,  the  easy-setting 
garment  adapted  to  the  varied  and  measured 
movements  of  the  man  of  the  world ;  embroidered 
and  gilded  silks  decked  with  laces,  the  pleasing 
and  majestic  attire  made  for  seigneurs  who 
desire  to  shine  and  yet  preserve  their  rank. 
Through  continued  and  accessory  changes  this 
costume  lasts  up  to  the  moment  when  panta- 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART  215 

loons,  the  republican  boot  and  the  grave,  useful 
black  coat  came  to  replace  shoe-buckles,  tight 
silk-hose,  lace  frills,  figured  waistcoats  and  the 
rose-colored,  or  light-blue,  or  apple-green  coat 
of  the  old  court.  Throughout  this  interval  one 
character  prevails  which  Europe  still  gives  us 
credit  for,  that  of  the  polished  gallant  French- 
'  man,  expert  in  the  art  of  treating  others  courte- 
ously, brillant  in  conversation,  fashioned,  more 
or  less  remotely,  according  to  the  courtier  of  Ver- 
sailles, loyal  to  the  noble  style  and  to  all  the  mon- 
archical proprieties  of  language  and  of  manners. 
A  group  of  doctrines  and  of  sentiments  are  joined 
to  these,  or  are  derived  from  them ;  religion,  the 
state,  philosophy,  love,  the  family  then  receive 
the  imprint  of  the  prevailing  character ;  and  this 
sum  of  moral  aptitudes  constitutes  one  of  the 
grand  types  which  the  human  memory  will 
always  cherish,  because  it  recognizes  in  it  one 
of  the  leading  forms  of  human  development. 

However  firm  and  stable  these  typos  may  be 
they  come  to  an  end.  We  see,  for  eighty  years 
past,  the  Frenchman,  engrossed  bv  the  demo 


216  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

cratic  regime,  lose  much  of  bis  politeness,  the 
greater  part  of  his  gallantry,  intensifying,  diver- 
sifying and  varying  his  tone  of  character,  and 
comprehending  in  a  novel  way  all  the  great  in- 
terests of  society  and  of  the  human  mind.  A 
people,  in  the  course  of  its  long  life,  goes 
through  many  such  reiterations ;  and  yet  it  re- 
mains intact,  not  only  by  the  continuity  of  the 
generations  composing  it,  but  also  by  the  per- 
sistence of  the  character  underlying  it.  Herein 
consists  the  primitive  substratum;  beneath  the 
strong  foundation  which  the  historic  periods  bear 
away,  deepens  and  extends  itself  a  foundation 
much  stronger,  which  the  historic  periods  do  not 
bear  away.  If  you  consider  in  turn  the  leading 
races  from  their  first  appearance  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time  you  will  always  find  in  them  a  class 
of  instincts  and  of  aptitudes  over  which  revolu- 
tions, decadences,  civilization  have  passed  with- 
out having  affected  them.  These  aptitudes  and 
these  instincts  are  in  the  blood  and  are  trans- 
mitted with  it ;  in  order  to  change  them  a  change 
of  blood  is  necessary,  that  is  to  say  an  invasion, 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  217 

a  permanent  conquest,  and  consequently,  com- 
minglings  of  raca,  or,  at  least,  a  change  of  the 
physical  milieu,  that  is  to  say  an  emigration  and 
the  slow  effect  of  a  new  climate,  in  short  a  trans- 
formation of  temperament  and  of  the  physical 
structure.  When,  in  the  same  country  the  blood 
remains  nearly  unmixed  the  same  character  of 
spirit  and  of  mind  which  shows  itself  in  the 
former  grandfathers  is  again  found  in  the  latest 
grandchildren.  The  Achaian  of  Homer,  the  lo- 
quacious and  babbling  hero  who  on  the  battle- 
field relates  genealogies  and  histories  to  his  ad- 
versary before  giving  him  blows  with  his  lance, 
is  substantially  the  same  as  the  Athenian  of 
Euripides,  philosopher,  sophist,  and  wrangler  who 
utters  in  the  open  theatre  the  maxims  of  the 
schools  and  the  pleadings  of  the  agora ;  we  see 
him  later  in  the  dilletant,  complacent,  parasitic 
Groeeulits  of  the  Roman  sovereignty ;  in  the  bibli- 
ophilist  critic  of  Alexandria  ;  in  the  disputatious 
theologian  of  the  Lower  Empire ;  the  John 
Cantacuzenes  and  the  wranglers  who,  become 
infatuated  over  the  uncreated  light  of  Mount 


218  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

Athos,  are  the  true  sons  of  Nestor  and  ol 
Ulysses ;  through  twenty-five  centuries  of  civili- 
zation and  of  decadence  prevails  the  same  powei 
of  language,  of  analysis,  of  dialectics  and  of 
subtilty. — In  like  manner  the  Anglo-Saxon  such 
as  we  behold  him  through  the  manners,  the  civil 
laws  and  the  ancient  poesy  of  the  barbaric  epoch, 
a  sort  of  ferocious,  carnivorous  and  militant 
brute,  but  heroic  and  endowed  with  noble  moral 
and  poetic  instincts,  reappears,  after  five  hundred 
years  of  Norman  conquest  and  of  French  impor- 
tations, in  the  impassioned  and  imaginative 
drama  of  the  Renaissance,  in  the  brutality  and 
licentiousness  of  the  Eestoration,  in  the  sombre 
and  austere  puritanism  of  the  Revolution,  in  the 
foundation  of  political  liberty  and  the  triumph 
of  moral  culture,  in  the  energy,  tbe  pride,  the 
sadness,  the  elevation  of  character  and  the  max- 
ims which,  in  England,  sustain,  at  the  present 
day,  the  laborer  and  the  citizen. — Let  us  look  at 
the  Spaniard  described  by  Strabo  and  the  latin 
historians,  solitary,  haughty,  indomitable,  dressed 
in  black ;  and  let  us  behold  him  later,  in  the 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  i>19 

middle  ages,  the  same  in  his  leading  traits  al- 
though the  Visigoths  cast  a  little  new  blood  into 
his  veins,  as  obstinate,  as  untractable  and  as  ar- 
rogant, driven  to  the  sea  by  the  Moors  and  re- 
gaining step  by  step  all  his  patrimony  by  a 
crusade  of  eight  centuries,  still  exalted  and  hard- 
ened by  the  length  and  the  monotony  of  the  strug- 
gle, fanatical  and  narrow,  limited  to  the  ways  of 
the  inquisitor  and  the  knight  just  as  in  the  times 
of  the  Cid,  under  Philip  3X,  under  Charles  H.,  in 
the  war  of  1700,  and  in  the  war  of  1808,  and  in 
the  chaos  of  despotisms  and  of  insurrections 
which  he  maintains  at  the  present  day. — Let  us 
consider  in  fine,  the  Gauls,  our  ancestors :  the 
Romans  said  of  them  that  they  prided  themselves 
on  two  things,  namely,  to  fight  bravely  and  to 
talk  adroitly.*  These,  indeed,  are  the  great  nat- 
ural gifts  which  show  themselves  the  most  in 
our  tabors  and  in  our  history :  on  the  one  hand, 
the  military  spirit,  brilliant  and  sometimes  fool- 
ish courage ;  on  the  other,  literary  talent,  the 

*  Duns  res  iiidustriosissimS  IK  rscqui'ur  gens  Gallorum, 
rein  milftarem  et  argute  loqui. 


220  ON  THE  IDEAL  1ft  AM 

charm  of  conversation  and  delicacy  of  style. 
Immediately  on  the  formation  of  our  language 
in  the  twelfth  century  the  Frenchman,  gay,  art- 
ful, fond  of  amusing  himself  and  others,  who 
talks  easily  and  too  much,  who  knows  how  to 
address  women,  who  loves  to  shine,  who  exposes 
himself  boastingly  and  also  through  impulse, 
sensitive  to  the  idea  of  honor,  less  sensitive  to 
the  idea  of  duty,  appears  in  literature  and  in  so- 
ciety. The  songs  of  the  troubadours  and  the 
fables,  the  Romance  of  the  Rose,  Charles 
of  Orleans,  Joinville  and  Froissart,  represent 
him  to  you  such  as  you  are  to  see  him  later  in 
Villon,  Brantome  and  Rabelais ;  such  as  he  will 
be  again  in  the  time  of  his  greatest  glory,  in  the 
time  of  La  Fontaine,  Moliere,  and  Voltaire,  in  the 
charming  drawing-rooms  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury and  even  down  to  the  century  of  Berenger. 
Thus  is  it  with  every  people ;  it  suffices  to  com- 
pare one  epoch  of  its  history  with  the  contem- 
porary epoch  of  another  history  in  order  to  find 
again  under  secondary  changes  the  national 
character  always  intact  and  persistent. 


ON  TJIK  IDEAL  IN  ART.  221 

This  is  the  primitive  foundation  ;  it  lasts  the 
whole  life  of  a  people,  and  serves  as  a  support 
to  the  successive  strata  which  successive  periods 
happen  to  deposit  on  the  surface. — If  you  were 
to  go  further  down  you  would  find  other  founda- 
tions still  deeper;  there  are  the  obscure  and 
gigantic  strata  which  linguistic  science  is  begin- 
ning to  lay  bare.  Underlying  the  characters  of 
communities  are  the  characters  of  races.  Cer- 
tain general  traits  denote  old  relationships  be- 
tween nations  of  a  different  genius ;  the  Latins, 
the  Greeks,  the  Germans,  the  Sclavonians,  the 
Celts,  the  Persians,  the  Hindoos  are  offshoots 
of  the  same  ancient  trunk;  neither  migrations, 
crossings,  nor  transformations  of  temperament 
have  been  able  to  graft  on  them  certain  philo- 
sophisal  and  social  aptitudes,  certain  general 
ways  of  conceiving  morality,  of  comprehending 
nature,  of  expressing  thought.  On  the  other 
hand  these  fundamental  traits  which  are  com- 
mon to  all  of  them  are  not  to  be  found  in  a 
different  race  such  as  the  Semites  or  the  Chi- 
nese ;  these  possess  others  and  of  the  same 


•222  ON  THE  WEAL  IN  ART. 

order.  The  different  races  are  to  each  other  in 
moral  as  a  vertebrata,  an  articulata,  a  mollusk 
are  to  each  other  in  physical  relationship  ;  they 
are  beings  organized  according  to  distinct  plans 
and  belonging  to  distinct  divisions. — Finally,  at 
the  lowest  stage,  are  found  the  characters  pecu- 
liar to  every  superior  race  capable  of  spon- 
taneous civilization,  that  is  to  say  endowed  with 
that  aptitude  for  general  ideas  which  is  the 
appanage  of  man  and  which  leads  him  to  found 
societies,  religions,  philosophies  and  arts;  sim- 
ilar dispositions  subsist  through  all  the  differ- 
ences of  race,  and  the  physiological  diversities 
which  master  the  rest  do  not  succeed  in  affecting 
them. 

Such  is  the  order  in  which  are  superposed  the 
layers  of  sentiments,  of  ideas,  of  aptitudes  and  of 
instincts  composing  the  human  soul.  You  see 
how  in  descending  from  the  higher  to  the  lower 
we  find  them  always  more  complex,  and  how 
their  importance  is  measured  by  their  stability. 
The  rule  that  we  have  borrowed  from  the  natu- 
ral sciences  here  finds  its  full  application  and 


ON  THE  WEAL  ZA  ART.  223 

verifies  itself  in  all  its  consequences.  For  the 
characters  the  most  stable  are  in  civil  as  in  natural 
history  the  most  elementary,  the  most  profound 
and  the  most  general.  In  the  psychological,  a 
well  as  in  the  organic  individual,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  distinguish  the  primitive  as  well  as  the 
later  characters,  the  elements  which  are  pri- 
mordial and  their  arrangement  which  is  derived. 
Now  a  character  is  elementary  when  it  is  com- 


mon to  all  the  movements  of  the  intellect :  such 


is  the  aptitude  to  think  by  means  of  vivid 
imagery,  or  by  long  chains  of  ideas  exactly  con- 
catenated ;  it  is  not  peculiar  to  certain  particu- 
lar movements  of  the  intellect ;  it  establishes  its 
empire  over  all  the  provinces  of  human  thought, 
and  exercises  its  action  over  all  the  productions 
of  the  human  mind;  as  soon  as  man  reasons, 
imagines,  and  speaks  it  is  present  and  para- 
mount ;  it  impels  him  on  in  a  certain  direction, 
it  closes  to  him  certain  issues.  Thus  is  it  with 
others.  Thus  the  more  elementary  a  character 
is  the  more  extended  is  its  ascendency.  But  the 
more  its  ascendency  is  extended  the  more  stable 


224  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

it  is.  There  are  situations  already  very  genera] 
and,  consequently,  dispositions  not  less  general, 
which  determine  historic  periods  and  their  lead- 
ing representatives — tke  wayward  and  insatiate 
plebeian  of  our  century,  the  aristocratic  courtier 
and  drawing-room  favorite  of  the  classic  era,  the 
lonely  and  independent  baron  of  the  middle  ages. 
There  are  characters  much  more  profound  and 
wholly  belonging  to  the  physical  temperament 
which  constitute  national  genius:  in  Spain  the 
need  of  sharp  and  keen  sensations  and  the  terri- 
ble explosion  of  an  exalted  and  concentrated 
imagination ;  in  France  the  need  of  clear  and 
affiliated  ideas  and  the  easy  movement  of  the  fa- 
cile reason.  They  are  the  most  elementary  dis- 
positions ;  a  language  with  or  without  a  gram- 
mar, a  phrase  capable  or  incapable  of  a  period, 
a  thought  at  one  time  reduced  to  a  dry  algebraic 
notation,  at  another,  flexible,  poetic,  and  subtle, 
at  another,  impassioned,  keen,  and  violently  ex- 
plosive which  constitute  the  races  like  those 
of  the  Chinese,  the  Aryans  and  the  Semites, 
Here,  as  in  natural  history,  it  is  necessary  to 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  225 

note  the  embryo  of  the  nascent  mind  in  order  to 
discover  in  it  the  distinctive  traits  of  the  com- 
plete and  developed  mind ;  the  characters  of  the 
primitive  age  are  the  most  significant  of  all ;  as 
according  to  the  presence,  the  absence,  or  the 
number  of  the  cotyledons  we  divine  the  order  to 
which  the  plant  and  the  principal  traits  of  its 
type  belong,  so,  according  to  the  structure  of 
language  and  the  nature  of  myths  we  can  form 
an  idea  of  the  future  form  of  religion,  of  philoso- 
phy, of  society  and  of  art. — You  perceive  that  in 
the  human  kingdom  as  in  the  animal  or  vegetable 
kingdom  the  principle  of  the  subordination  of 
characters  establishes  the  same  hierarchy:  the 
superior  rank  and  the  first  importance  belong 
to  the  most  stable  characters ;  and  if  these  are 
more  stable  it  is  that,  being  more  elementary, 
they  are  present  on  a  much  larger  surface  and 
are  swept  away  only  by  a  greater  revolution. 


226  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 


m. 


To  this  scale  of  moral  values  corresponds,  step 
by  step,  the  scale  of  literary  values.  All  things 
in  other  respects  being  equal,  according  as  the 
character  set  forth  in  a  book  is  more  or  less  im- 
portant, that  is  to  say  more  or  less  elementary 
and  stable,  this  book  becomes  more  or  less  beau- 
tiful, and  you  will  see  the  layers  of  the  moral 
strata  communicate  to  the  literary  works  which 
express  them,  their  proper  degree  of  power  and 
duration. 

There  is,  at  first,  a  literature  of  fashion  which 
expresses  the  character  in  the  fashion ;  it  lasts, 
like  that  character,  three  or  four  years  and  some- 
times less;  it  commonly  blossoms  and  decays 
with  the  leaves  of  the  year:  it  consists  of  the 
romance,  the  farce,  the  pamphlet,  the  novelty  in 
vogue.  Head,  if  you  have  the  courage  to  do  so, 
a  vaudeville  or  a  humorous  piece  of  the  year 
1835, — you  will  let  it  drop  out  of  your  hand. 
Attempts  are  often  made  to  reproduce  it  on  the 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART,  227 

stage ;  twenty  years  ago  it  was  the  rage ;  to-day 
the  audience  yawn  and  the  piece  quickly  disap- 
pears from  the  play-bills.  This  or  that  romance, 
once  sung  at  every  piano,  is  now  ludicrous ;  we 
find  it  insipid  and  discordant ;  it  is  at  best  only 
encountered  in  some  remote  and  antiquated 
province ;  itexpresses  onlvjBome  of  those  eyaii- 
escent  sentiments  which  a  slight  variation  in 
customs  suffices  to  do  away  with ;  it  has  become 
old-fashioned,  and  we  are  surprised  at  ourselves 
for  having  been  pleased  with  such  foolish  things. 
Thus,  from  among  the  innumerable  writings 
which  see  the  light,  time  makes  its  selection ; 
superficial  and  slightly  persistent  characters  are 
borne  away  with  the  works  which  express  them. 
Other  works  correspond  to  characters  some- 
what more  durable,  and  seem  to  be  masterpieces 
to  the  generations  which  read  them.  Such  was 
that  famous  "AstreV*  which  D'TJrfe  composed 
at  the  commencement  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury— a  pastoral  romance,  of  infinite  length  and 
yet  greater  dulness,  a  bower  of  foliage  and 
flowers  to  which  men,  weary  with  thi  slaughter 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

and  brigandage  of  religious  wars,  betook  them- 
selves to  listen  to  the  sighs  and  sentimentalities 
of  Celadon.  Such  were  the  romances  of  Mad- 
emoiselle de  Scudery — the  "  Grand  Cyrus,"  and 
"  Clelie," — in  which  the  exaggerated,  refined  and 
measured  gallantry  introduced  into  France  by 
the  Spanish  queens,  the  noble  dissertation  on 
the  new  language,  the  mysteries  of  the  heart 
and  the  ceremonial  of  politeness,  were  displayed 
like  the  majestic  robes  and  formal  reverences 
of  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet.  Countless  works 
had  this  kind  of  merit  which  to-day  are  nothing 
more  than  historical  documents:  foi  example, 
the  "Euphues"  of  Lilly,  the  "Adonis"  of  Ma- 
rini,  the  "  Hudibras  "  of  Butler,  and  the  biblical 
pastorals  of  Gessner.  We  are  not  without  such 
writings  now-a-days,  but  I  prefer  not  to  mention 
them ;  I  will  only  remark  that  about  1806  "  M. 
Esmenard  held  at  Paris  the  position  of  a  great 
man,"*  and  enumerate  the  multitude  of  worka 
which  seemed  sublime  at  the  beginning  of  the 

*  An  exj  ression  of  Stendhal'B. 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  228 

literary  revolution  of  which  we  now  see  the 
end— "  Atala,"  "  The  Last  of  the  Abencerrages," 
the  "Natchez"  and  many  of  Madame  de  Stael's 
and  Lord  Byron's  personages.  At  present  the 
first  stage  of  the  journey  has  been  passed  over, 
and,  stationed  where  we  are,  we  detect  without 
any  difficulty  the  exaggeration  and  the  affecta- 
tion which  contemporaries  did  not  suspect.  The 
celebrated  elegy  of  Millevoye  on  the  "  Chute  des 
Feuilles"  leaves  us  as  unmoved  as  the  "Messe- 
niennes"  of  Casimir  Delavigne ;  it  is  because  the 
two  works,  half  classic  and  half  romantic,  corre- 
sponded by  their  mixed  character  to  a  generation 
placed  on  the  frontier  of  two  periods,  and  their 
success  has  had  precisely  the  duration  of  the 
moral  character  which  they  manifested. 

Many  very  remarkable  cases  show  most  clearly 
how  the  value  of  a  work  increases  and  decreases 
with  the  value  of  the  character  expressed.  It 
seems  that  here  nature  yoked  together  expe- 
rience and  counter-experience  with  premeditated 
purpose.  We  might  cite  writers  who  have  left  one 
work  of  the  first  among  twenty  of  the  secondary 


230  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

order.  In  both  cases  the  talent,  the  education, 
the  preparation,  the  effort  was  all  alike  ;  never- 
theless, in  the  first,  there  issued  from  the  cruci- 
ble, an  ordinary  work  ;  in  the  second,  a  master- 
piece saw  the  light.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
in  the  first  case  the  writer  expressed  only  super- 
ficial and  transitory  characters,  whilst  in  the 
second  he  seized  upon  enduring  and  profound 
characters.  Le  Sage  wrote  twelve  volumes  of 
romances  imitated  from  the  Spanish,  and  the 
Abbe  Prevost  twenty  volumes  of  tragic  and  pa- 
thetic novels ;  the  curious  alone  seek  these  out, 
while  everybody  has  read  Gil  Bias  and  Manon 
Lescaut.  The  reason  of  this  is  that  a  happy 
accident  twice  brought  to  the  artist's  hand  a 
stable  type  of  which  every  man  encounters  traits 
in  the  society  around  him  or  in  the  sentiments 
of  his  own  breast.  Gil  Bias  is  a  bourgeois  with 
a  classic  education,  having  passed  through  all 
conditions  of  society  and  made  a  fortune,  easy 
in  his  conscience,  somewhat  a  valet  his  whole 
life,  a  little  picaro  in  his  youth,  accommodating 
himself  to  the  standard  of  worldly  morality,  by 


ON  TEE  IDEAL  Uf  ART.  231 

no  means  a  stoic  and  still  less  a  patriot,  securing 
hi#  own  share  of  the  cake  and  freely  biting  into 
that  of  the  public,  but  gay,  sympathetic,  no  hyp- 
ocrite, capable  occasionally  of  self-judgment 
having  fits  of  honesty  with  a  substratum  of 
honor  and  benevolence,  and  winding  up  with  a 
well-regulated  and  straight-forward  life.  A  like 
character,  adopting  the  medium  in  all  things, 
and  a  like  destiny,  so  tangled  and  diversified,  is 
daily  encountered  and  will  be  again  to-morrow 
as  it  was  in  the  eighteenth  century. — In  a  simi- 
lar manner,  in  Manon  Lescaut,  the  courtezan 
who  is  an  amiable  girl,  immoral  through  the 
craving  for  luxury,  but  affectionate  by  instinct, 
and  capable  in  the  end  of  returning  a  love  equal 
to  the  absolute  love  which  made  all  sacrifices  for 
her,  is  a  type  of  so  permanent  a  nature  that 
George  Sand  in  Leone  Leoni  and  Victor  Hugo  in 
Marion  Ddorme  have  taken  it  up  to  put  it  again 
upon  the  stage,  simply  reversing  the  parts  and 
changing  the  time. — De  Foe  wrote  two  hundred 
volumes,  and  Cervantes  I  know  not  iow  many 
dramas  and  romances,  the  former  with  the  truth- 


232  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

ful  detail,  the  minutiae,  the  dry  precision  of  a  pu- 
ritan business-man,  and  the  latter  with  the  in- 
vention, the  glow,  the  insufficiency,  the  gener- 
osity of  a  Spanish  cavalier  and  adventurer :  of 
the  one  there  remains  Robinson  Crusoe,  and  of 
the  other  Don  Quixote.  It  is  because  Robinson 
Crusoe  is,  at  first,  the  genuine  Englishman  com- 
pletely embodying  the  profound  instincts  of  the 
race  still  visible  in  the  sailor  and  in  the  colonial 
squatter  of  his  country,  violent  and  savage  in  his 
resolutions,  protestant  and  biblical  at  heart, 
with  those  silent  fermentations  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  of  the  conscience  which  lead  to  crises 
of  conversion  and  of  grace,  energetic,  obstinate, 
patient,  indefatigable,  born  for  labor,  capable 
of  clearing  away  and  colonizing  continents ;  it  is 
because  the  same  personage,  apart  from  national 
character,  presents  to  the  eye  the  severest  ex- 
perience of  human  life  and  an  abridgment  of  all 
human  invention,  showing  the  individual  torn 
from  civilized  society  and  constrained  to  recover 
by  his  solitary  effort  so  many  arts  and  so  many 
industries,  of  which  the  benefits  surround  him 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  23S 

hourly  and  unconsciously  as  water  surrounds  the 
fish. — In  like  manner,  in  Don  Quixote  we  see  at 
first  the  chivalrous  and  morbid  Spaniard,  such  as 
eight  centuries  of  crusades  and  of  overcharged 
reveries  had  made  him,  but,  besides  this,  one  of 
the  eternal  prototypes  of  human  history,  the 
heroic,  sublime,  visionary,  meager  and  broken- 
down  idealist :  in  order  to  strengthen  the  impres- 
sion, and  by  way  of  contrast,  we  see  alongside 
of  him  the  sage,  matter-of-fact,  vulgar  and  gross 
bumpkin. — May  I  still  cite  to  you  another  of  those 
immortal  personages  in  which  a  race  and  an  epoch 
are  recognized,  and  whose  name  becomes  one 
of  the  current  terms  of  a  language,  the  Figaro 
of  Beaumarchais,  a  kind  of  Gil  Bias  more  ner- 
vous and  more  revolutionary  than  the  other? 
And  yet  the  author  was  simply  a  man  of  talent ; 
he  was  too  sparkling  with  wit  to  create,  like 
Moliere,  spirits  that  live ;  but,  one  day,  drawing 
a  picture  of  himself,  with  his  gayety,  his  expe- 
dients, his  irreverence,  his  repartees,  his  courage, 
his  natural  good-heartedness,  his  inexhaustible 
vivacity,  he  has  delineated,  witrout  so  intending 


234  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

it,  the  portrait  of  the  true  Frenchman,  and  hia 
talent  rose  to  genius. — There  occur  counter  ver- 
ifications, and  there  are  cases  where  genius  de- 
scends to  talent.  Many  a  writer  who  knows  how 
to  mould  and  put  in  motion  the  greatest  person- 
ages leaves  in  his  group  of  figures  a  crowd  of  inan- 
imate beings,  who,  at  the  end  of  a  century,  seem 
dead  or  repulsive,  open  to  ridicule,  whose  whole 
interest  belongs  to  antiquaries  and  historians. 
For  example  the  lovers  of  Racine  are  all  mar- 
quises ;  all  their  character  is  in  their  good  be- 
havior ;  their  sentiments  are  so  fashioned  as  to 
please  dandies ;  he  makes  them  gallants  ;  in  his 
hands  they  become  court-puppets;  even  now 
intelligent  foreigners  cannot  endure  M.  Hippo- 
lyte  and  M.  Xiphares. — In  the  same  way  the 
clowns  of  Shakespeare  amuse  no  more,  and  his 
young  gentlemen  appear  extravagant ;  one  must 
bo  a  critic  and  an  expert  in  order  to  place  him- 
self at  the  proper  point  of  view ;  their  play  on 
words  is  offensive,  and  their  metaphors  are  un- 
intelligible;  their  pretentious  jargon  is  a  con- 
ventionalism of  the  sixteenth  century,  as  the 


ON  THE  WEAL  IN  ART.  235 

refined  tirade  is  one  of  the  proprieties  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  There  are  also  fashionable 
personages ;  the  exterior  and  the  effect  of  the 
hour  are  so  predominant  in  them  that  the  rest 
disappear. — You  perceive,  by  this  twofold  ex- 
perience, the  importance  of  profound  and  endur- 
ing characters,  since  a  lack  of  them  degrades  a 
great  man's  work  to  the  second  rank,  and  their 
presence  exalts  the  work  of  a  lesser  talent  to  the 
first  rank. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  if  one  froes  through 
the  great  lite£arv_jvorkSj,  he  will  find  that  all 
manifest  a  profound  and  durable  character,  and 
that  their  rank  is  higher  according  as  this 

CJ  CJ 

character  is  more  durable  and  more  profound. 
They  are  generalizations  which  present  to  the 
mind  under  a  sensible  form  at  one  time  the  prin- 
cipal traits  of  a  historical  period,  at  another  the 
primordial  instincts  and  faculties  of  a  race,  at  an- 
other some  fragment  of  the  universal  man  and 
those  elementary  psychological  forces  which  are 
the  ultimate  explanation  of  human  events.  IE 
order  to  be  convinced  of  this  we  need  net  pass 


236  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

in  review  the  various  literary  works.  It  will 
be  sufficient  to  note  the  use  which  is  now 
made  of  literary  works  in  history.  It  is  through 
these  that  the  deficiencies  of  memoirs,  constitu- 
tions, and  diplomatic  documents  are  supplied; 
they  show  us  with  an  astonishing  precision  and 
clearness,  the  sentiments  of  diverse  epochs,  the 
instincts  and  aptitudes  of  diverse  races,  all  the 
great  secret  springs  whose  equilibrium  maintains 
societies  and  whose  discords  lead  to  revolutions. 
The  positive  history  and  chronology  of  ancient 
India  are  almost  useless;  but  its  heroic  and 
sacred  poems  remain  to  us,  and  in  these  we  see 
its  spirit  laid  bare,  that  is  to  say  the  order  and 
condition  of  its  imagination,  the  extent  and  con- 
nection of  its  dreams,  the  depth  and  disorder  of 
its  philosophical  divinations  and  the  inner  prin- 
ciple of  its  religion  and  of  its  institutions. — Let 
us  consider  Spain  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  and 
at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  If 
you  read  Lazarillo  de  Tomes  and  the  picaresque. 
romances,  if  you  study  the  drama  of  Lope  de 

__i_j»  mm ^""- ^-^^._^^i>\^^-^--*\.«Brt.wu^*»tfc-.-'>Tfc.hl,..v.^..  .-^v   ;  t|1|  ,^;V1||||  j(    ^ ^ 

Vega,  of  Caldoron  and  other  dramatists,  you  will 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  237 

Bee  rising  before  you  two  living  figures,  the  beg- 
gar and  the  cavalier,  who  will  showjp_ij...alL-tlie.. 
misery,  all  the  grandeur  and  all  the  follj  of  this 
strange  civilization.— The  more  perfect  a  work  is 
the  deeper  are  the  characteristics  portrayed  in  it. 
We'imgEt  extract  from  Racine  the  whole  system 
of  the  monarchical  sentiments  of  our  seven- 
teenth century, — the  portrait  of  the  king,  of  the 
queen,  of  the  children  of  France,  of  noble  court- 
iers, ladies  of  honor,  and  prelates  ;  all  the  domi- 
nant ideas  of  the  time, — feudal  fidelity,  chivalric 
honor,  servility  of  the  ante-chamber,  the  decorum 
of  the  palace,  the  devotion  of  servants  and 
subjects,  the  perfection  of  manners,  the  sway  and 
tyranny  of  propriety,  the  natural  and  artificial 
niceties  of  language,  of  the  heart,  of  Christian* 
ity  and  of  morality  ;  in  short,  the  habits  and 
sentiments  which  make  up  the  principal  traits 
of  the  ancient  regime. — Our  greatest  modern 
epics,  the  Divine  Comedy  and  Faust,  are  sum- 
maries of  two  grand  European  historical  epochs. 
One  shows  us  fee  way  in  which  the  Middle 
Ages  regarded  life,  aud  the  other  the  way  ic 


238  ON  TILE  .WEAL  IN  ART. 

which  we  regard  it.  Both  of  them  express  tli£ 
highest  truth  to  which  two  sovereign  minds,  each 
in  its  time,  attained,  Dante's  poem  depicts  the 
man  who,  transported  outside  of  this  ephemeral 
world,  traverses  the  supernatural,  the  sole  defini- 
tive and  subsisting  world  ;  he  was  conducted  by 
two  powers,  the  exalted  love  which  then  con- 
trolled human  life,  and  systematic  theology  which 
was  then  the  queen  of  speculative  thought ;  his 
poetic  dream,  by  turns  horrible  and  sublime,  is 
the  mystic  reverie  which  then  seemed  the  perfect 
state  of  the  human  mind.  Goethe's  poem 
depicts  the  man  who,  led  through  all  the  ways 
of  science  and  of  life,  gets  bruised  and  dis- 
gusted, wanders  and  gropes  around,  and  finally 
settles  down  resignedly  into  practical  life  with- 
out, among  so  many  painful  experiences  and 
unsatisfied  questionings,  ever  ceasing  to  realize 
behind  its  legendary  veil  that  superior  realm  of 
ideal  forms  and  of  incorporeal  forces  on  the 
threshold  of  which  thought  is  arrested,  and  to 
which  alone  the  divinations  of  the  hen  it  can 
penetrate.  Among  so  many  finished  works 


ON  THE  WEAL  IN  ART.  239 

which  manifest  the  essential  charactei  of  a  race 
or  an  epoch,  there  are  some  which,  by  a  singular 
chance,  express,  moreover,  some  sentiment^spme 
type,  common  to  almost  all  groups  of  humanity ; 
such  are  the  Hebrew  Psalms  that  confront  the 
monotheistic  man  with  the  Almighty  Judge  and 
Sovereign  God;  the  " Imitation."  which  shows 
the  communion  of  the  tender  soul  with  the 
loving  and  consoling  Redeemer;  the  poems  of 
Homer  and  the  dialogues  of  Plato,  which  repre- 
sent the  heroic  youth  of  the  active  man,  or  the 
charming  adolescence  of  the  reflective  man ; 
nearly  all  Hint  Greuk  literature  which  possessed 
the  privilege  of  representing  healthy  and  simple 
sentiments ;  Shakespeare,  in  fine,  the  greatest  in 
original  creations,  the  deepest  observer  of  man, 
the  most  clear-sighted  of  all  those  who  have 
comprehended  the  mechanism  of  the  human 
passions,  the  mute  fermentations  and  the  violent 
explosions  of  the  imaginative  brain,  the  unfore- 
seen derangements  of  consciousness,  the  tyranny 
of  the  flesh  and  blood,  the  fatalities  of  character 
and  the  obscure  causes  of  our  sanity  and  in- 


240  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

sanity.  Don  Quixote,  Candide,  and  Robinson 
Crusoe,  are  books  of  a  like  scope.  Works  of 
this  class  survive  the  century  and  the  people  to 
whom  they  owe  their  origin.  They  pass  beyond 

*"  <-J  .•.  . M.*~jJkff*-*-n»eiut.+r*~.jKW* •  *»** 

the  ordinary  limits  of  time  and  space :  they  are 

— -t-i — ^^Tv^.----^»-^--^^'^^•^^•''^a'''n"'"'''•^t^^-«--»-~'^~^•^•••l"•'••<•»a' 

understood  wherever  we  find  a  thinking  mind ; 
their  popularity  is  indestructible  and  their  dura- 
tion infinite.  A  final  proof  of  the  connection 
between  moral  and  literary  values,  and  of  the 
principle  which  arranges  the  works  of  art  above 
or  below  each  other,  according  to  the  impor- 
tance, the  stability  and  the  depth  of  the  historic 
or  psychological  character  which  they  have 
expressed. 


0A  '1'HJti  IDMAL  IN  A&T.  241 


IV 


It  is  now  for  us  to  construct  a  similar  scale  for 
the  physical  man  and  for  the  arts  representing 
him,  namely  sculpture,  and  especially  painting ; 
pursuing  the  same  method,  we  shall,  at  first, 
seek  what  are,  in  the  physical  man,  the  most 
stable  characters,  since  they  are  the  most  impor- 
tant ones. 

It  is  clear,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  fashion- 
able coat  is  of  very  secondary  importance;  it 
changes  every  two  years,  or  at  least,  every  ten 
years.  So  is  it  with  dress  in  general ;  it  is  an 
externality  and  a  decoration;  it  may  be  taken 
off  with  a  turn  of  the  hand ;  the  essential  thing 
in  the  living  form  is  the  living  body  itself ;  the 
rest  is  accessory  and  artificial.  Other  charac- 
ters which,  in  this  instance,  belong  to  the  body 
itself,  are  likewise  of  secondary  importance; 
they  are  the  peculiarities  of  a  profession  and  of 
a  tiada  A  blacksmith  has  other  arms  than  a 


242  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AST. 

lawyer;  an  officer  walks  differently  from  a 
priest ;  a  countryman  who  labors  all  day  in  the 
sun  has  other  muscles,  another  color  to  his  skin, 
another  curve  of  the  spine,  other  wrinkles  on  the 
brow,  another  air,  than  the  city  denizen  shut  up 
in  a  drawing-room  or  in  his  counting-room. 
These  characters  have  unquestionably  a  certain 
solidity;  man  preserves  them  all  his  life;  once 
contracted,  the  wrinkle  remains;  a  very  slight 
accident  was  sufficient  to  produce  these,  and 
another  accident  not  less  slight  might  have 
sufficed  to  remove  them.  Their  sole  cause  con- 
sists of  an  accident  of  birth  or  of  education; 
change  the  condition,  and  the  milieu  of  the  man, 
and  you  will  find  in  him  opposite  peculiarities  ; 
the  citizen  reared  like  the  countryman  will  have 
the  air  of  the  countryman,  and  the  countryman 
reared  like  the  citizen  will  have  the  air  of  a 
citizen.  The  original  character  will  remain, 
when  thirty  years'  education  will  be  apparent,  if 
apparent  at  all,  only  to  the  psychologist  and 
moralist ;  the  body  will  preserve  only  impercept- 
ible traits  of  it,  and  the  innate  and  stable 


ON  TEE  IDEAL  IN  AST.  243 

characters,  which  are  its  essence,  compose  a 
layer  much  deeper  and  wholly  unaffected  by 
these  passing  causes. 

Other  influences  equally  affecting  the  soul  leave 
but  a  feeble  impression  on  the  body ;  I  allude 
to  historical  epochs.  The  system  of  ideas  and 
of  sentiments  which  engrossed  the  human  brain 
under  Louis  XIV.  was  quite  different  from  that 
of  the  present  day,  but  the  physical  framework 
differed  but  slightly ;  the  most  we  can  discover,  in 
consulting  the  portraits,  statues,  and  engravings  of 
that  day,  is  a  more  imposing  habit  of  noble  and 
dignified  attitudes.  That  which  varies  the  most 
is  the  expression;  a  Renaissance  countenance, 
such  as  we  see  it  in  the  portraits  by  Bronzino 
and  Van  Dyke,  is  stronger  and  more  simple  than 
a  modern  face ;  for  the  last  three  centuries  the 
swarm  of  subtle  and  fleeting  ideas  with  which 
we  are  penetrated,  the  complexity  of  our  tastes, 
the  feverish  uneasiness  of  our  thoughts,  the 
excesses  of  our  cerebral  life,  the  burden  of  con- 
tinuous labor,  have  refined,  troubled,  and  tor- 
mented both  the  face  and  the  expression 


244  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AST. 

Lastly,  if  we  take  long  periods  we  shall  be  able 
to  detect  a  certain  alteration  of  the  head  itself ; 
those  physiologists  who  have  measured  the 
skulls  of  the  twelfth  century,  find  them  to  be  of 
less  capacity  than  our  own.  But  history,  which 
preserves  so  exact  a  register  of  moral  variations, 
only  states  in  mass,  and  very  imperfectly,  physi- 
cal variations.  The  reason  is,  that  the  same 
alteration  of  the  human  animal,  morally  enor- 
mous, is  very  slight  physically ;  an  imperceptible 
modification  of  the  brain  makes  a  lunatic,  a  fool, 
or  a  man  of  genius ;  a  social  revolution  which, 
at  the  end  of  two  or  three  centuries,  renews  all 
the  springs  of  the  mind  and  of  the  will,  only 
slightly  affects  the  organs;  and  history,  which 
furnishes  the  means  of  subordinating  to  each 
other  the  characters  of  the  soul,  does  not  furnish 
the  means  for  subordinating  to  each  other  the 
characters  of  the  physical  being. 

We  are,  consequently,  obliged  to  take  another 
course,  and  here  again  it  is  the  principle  of  the 
subordination  of  characters  which  leads  us. 
You  have  noticed  that  when  a  character  is  more 


OX  TILE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  246 

stable,  it  is  because  it  is  more  elementary ;  the 
cause  of  its  duration  is  its  depth.  Let  us  seek 
therefore,  in  the  living  form  for  the  characters 
peculiar  to  its  elements,  and  for  this  purpose  let 
me  call  your  attention  to  a  model,  such  as  you 
have  before  your  eyes  in  your  drawing-schools. 
Here  is  a  naked  man ;  what  is  there  that  is  com- 
mon  to  all  portions  of  this  animated  surface? 
What  is  the  element  which,  repeated  and  diver- 
sified, occurs  again  and  again  in  each  fragment 
of  the  whole  ?  From  the  point  of  view  of.forPL 
it  is  a  bone  provided  with,  tendons  and  clothed 
with  muscles^  here  the  omoplate  and  the  clavi- 
cle, there  the  femur  and  the  thigh-bone  ;  higher 
up  the  vertebral  column  and  the  skull,  each  with 
its  articulations,  its  depressions,  its  projections, 
its  aptitude  for  serving  as  fulcrum  or  lever,  and 
those  coils  of  retractile  muscles  which,  in  turn, 
shrink  and  expand  hi  order  to  communicate  to  it 
its  different  positions  and  its  diverse  movements. 
An  articulated  skeleton  and  a  covering  of  nius- 
cles,  all  logically  enchained,  a  superb  and  intelli- 
gent machine  for  action  and  for  effort,  such  i« 


246  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

the  basis  of  the  visible v,nian.  If  now  you  take 
into  account,  in  considering  him,  modifications 
which  race,  climate,  and  temperament  superadd, 
softness  or  rigidity  of  muscles,  diverse  propor- 
tions of  parts,  elongation  or  contraction  of  body 
and  limbs,  you  will  have  in  hand  the  whole  inte- 
rior framework  of  the  body,  such  as  sculpture 
and  drawing  take  it  to  be. — Over  the  naked  mus- 
cles is  extended  a  second  covering,  common  also 
to  all  the  parts, — the  skin  with  vibrating  papilla 
undulatingly  blue  through  its  network  of  small 
veins,  yellow  through  the  transparent  casing  of 
the  tendons,  red  through  the  flow  of  blood, 
pearly  in  contact  with  the  membranous  tissues, 
now  smooth  and  now  striated,  of  a  richness  and 
an  incomparable  variety  of  tones,  luminous  in 
shadow,  all  palpitating  in  the  light,  betraying  by 
its  nervous  sensibility  the  delicacy  of  the  soft 
pulp  and  the  renewal  of  the  fluent  flesh,  of  which 
it  is  the  transparent  veil.  If,  besides  this,  you 
remark  the  diversities  which  raoe^  climate,  and 
temperament  contribute  to  it ;  if  you  note  how  in 
the  lymphatic,  bilious,  or  sanguine  subject  it  is 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  247 

found  now  tender,  flabby,  rosy  white  and  wan, 
now  firm,  consistent,  amber-tinted,  and  ferrny 
ginous,  you  will  grasp  the  second  element  of 
visible  life,  that  which  belongs  to  the  domain  of 

••     IM.I*II    iiiiiii'"">*'y*t ,.»•.*>. t-.  -*f**J***nM*^"*  HJ •^XMIKIl<MM»iXi»<^MaMPaM*BMMMMBMB»>glH ' ** 

the  painter,  and  which  the  colorist  alone  can 
express.  These  constitute  the  deep-seated  and 
inner  characters  of  the  physical  man,  and  I  have 
no  need  jo  point  out  that  they  are  ptable  Jfflffl 
they  are  insegarable^from ,  th 


248  ON  THE  WEAL  12?  ART. 


V. 


To  this  scale  of  physical  values  corresponds, 
step  by  step,  a  scale  of  plastic  values.  More- 
over, other  things  being  equal,  according  as  the 
character  brought  into  light  by  a  picture  or  a 
statue  is  more  or  less  important,  this  picture 
and  this  statue  are  more  or  less  beautiful.  Thia 
is  why  you  find  in  the  lowest  rank,  those  draw- 
ings, aquarelles,  pastels,  and  statuettes,  which  in 
man  do  not  depict  the  man,  but  his  dress,  and 
especially  the  dress  of  the  day.  Illustrated 
reviews  are  full  of  them ;  they  might  almost  be 
called  fashion-plates ;  every  exaggeration  of 
costume  is  therein  displayed :  wasp-like  waists, 
monstrous  skirts,  overloaded  and  fantastic  head- 
dresses ;  the  artist  is  heedless  of  the  deformity 
of  the  human  body;  that  which  gives  him 
pleasure  is  the  fashion  of  the  moment,  the  gloss 
of  stuffs,  the  close  fitting  of  a  glove,  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  chignon.  Alongside  of  the  scribbler 
with  the  pen  he  is  the  scribbler  with  the  pencil ; 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  249 

he  may  have  a  good  deal  of  talent  and  wit,  but 
he  appeals  only  to  a  transient  taste ;  in  twenty 
years  his  coats  will  be  completely  out  of  date. 
Countless  sketches  of  this  description  which,  in 
1830,  were  in  vogue,  are,  at  the  present  hour, 
simply  historic  or  grotesque.  Numbers  of  por- 
traits in  our  annual  exhibitions  are  nothing  but 
portraits  of  costumes,  and,  alongside  of  the 
painters  of  man,  are  the  painters  of  moire- 
antique  and  of  satin. 

Other  painters,  although  superior  to  these, 
still  remain  on  the  lower  steps  of  art ;  or  rather 
they  have  some  talent  besides  their  art;  they 
are  badly-placed  observers,  born  to  compose 
romances  and  studies  on  society,  and  who, 
instead  of  the  pen,  have  taken  up  the  brush. 
That  which  strikes  them  is  the  peculiarities  of  a 
calling,  of  a  profession,  of  training,  the  impress 
of  vice  or  of  virtue,  of  passion  or  of  habit; 
Hogarth,  Wilkie,  Mulready,  and  hosts  of  Eng- 
lish painters  possessed  this  gift  so  slightly  pic- 
turesque and  so  literary.  They  see  in  the  physi- 
cal man  only  the  moral  man  ;  with  them  color, 


250  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

drawing,  truthfulness,  and  the  beauty  of  th« 
living  body,  are  subordinate.  It  suffices  foi 
them  to  represent  by  forms,  attitudes  and  colors, 
at  one  time  the  frivolity  of  a  fashionable  woman, 
at  another  the  honest  sorrow  of  an  old  steward, 
at  another  the  debasement  of  a  gambler,  and 
innumerable  petty  dramas  or  comedies  of  real 
life,  all  instructive  or  diverting,  and  almost  all 
with  a  view  to  inspire  good  sentiments  or  to 
correct  abuses.  Properly  speaking,  they  delin- 
eate nothing  but  spirits,  minds,  and  emotions. 
They  incline  so  strongly  to  this  side  as  to  out- 
rage form  and  render  it  inflexible;  frequently 
their  pictures  are  caricatures,  and  always  illus- 
trations, the  illustrations  to  a  village  idyl,  or  to 
a  domestic  romance  which  Burns,  Fielding,  or 
Dickens  might  better  have  written.  The  same 
prepossessions  attend  them  when  treating  histo- 
rical subjects ;  they  treat  them  not  as  painters, 
but  as  historians,  in  order  to  display  the  moral 
sentiments  of  a  personage  or  of  an  epoch, — the 
expression  of  a  Lady  Bussell  contemplating  hei 
condemned  husband  piously  receiving  the  sacra- 


ON  THIS  IDEAL  IN  ART.  251 

ment,  the  despair  of  Edith  with  the  swan's  neck 
on  discovering  Harold  among  the  dead  at  Hast- 
ings. Composed  of  archeological  researches  and 
of  psychological  documents,  their  work  appeals 
only  to  archeologists  and  to  psychologists,  or  at 
least,  to  the  curious  and  to  philosophers.  At 
most,  it  answers  the  purpose  of  a  satire  or  of  a 
drama;  the  spectator  is  made  to  laugh  or  to 
weep,  as  at  the  fifth  act  of  a  play  on  the  stage. 
It  is  evident,  nevertheless,  that  this  order  of  art 
is  eccentric ;  it  is  an  encroachment  of  painting 
on  literature,  or  rather  an  invasion  of  literature 
on  the  domain  of  painting.  Our  artists  of  the 
school  of  1830,  Delaroche  among  the  first,  fell, 
although  less  gravely,  into  the  same  mistake. 
The  beauty  of  a  plastic  work  is,  above  all,  plastic, 
and  an  art  always  degenerates  when,  discarding 
its  own  peculiar  means  for  exciting  interest,  it 
borrows  those  of  another  art. 

I  now  come  to  the  great  example  iu  which  are 
combined  all  others,  namely,  the  history  of 
painting  in  general,  and  foremost,  of  that  Italian 
painting,  on  which  I  have  been  commenting  foi 


252  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

the  past  three  years.  A  series  of  proofs  and 
counter-proofs  here  shows  during  five  hundred 
years  the  picturesque  value  of  the  character 
which  the  theory  prescribes  as  the  essence  of  the 
physical  man.  At  one  particular  time  the  hu- 
man animal, — the  bony  framework  covered  with 
muscles,  the  sensitive  and  colored  flesh  and  skin, 
— were  comprehended  and  animated  for  them- 
selves alone,  and  above  everything  else ;  this  is 
the  grand  epoch ;  the  works  it  has  left  to  us  pass 
for  the  most  beautiful  in  the  judgment  of  all; 
all  schools  resort  to  them  in  quest  of  models 
and  to  be  instructed.  At  other  epochs  the  idea 
of  the  figure  is,  at  one  time,  incomplete,  and  at 
another  mingled  with  other  preoccupations  and 
subordinated  to  other  preferences ;  these  are  the 
periods  of  infancy,  of  transformation,  or  of 
decadence ;  however  richly  endowed  artists  may 
be,  they  execute  at  such  times  only  inferior  or 
secondary  works ;  their  talent  is  not  wisely 
applied;  they  have  not  caught,  or  they  have 
imperfectly  caught,  the  fundamental  character 
of  the  visible  man.  Thus  is  the  value  of  the 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  253 

work,  in  all  directions,  proportionate  to  the 
domination  of  this  character ;  it  is  important  for 
the  writer,  above  all  things,  to  produce  living 
characters ;  and  it  is  equally  important  for  the 
sculptor  and  the  painter  to  create  living  bodies. 
It  is  according  to  this  principle  that  you  have 
seen  classed  the  successive  periods  of  art. 
From  Cimabue  to  Masaccio  the  painter  ignores 
perspective,  modelling  and  anatomy ;  he  contem- 
plates the  palpable  and  solid  body  only  through 
a  veil ;  consistency,  vitality,  the  moving  frame- 
work, the  acting  muscles  of  the  trunk  and  of  the 
limbs  do  not  interest  him ;  personages,  with  him, 
consist  of  outlines  and  of  shadows  of  men,  and, 
sometimes,  of  glorified  and  incorporeal  spirits. 
The  religious  sentiment  prevails  over  the  plastic 
instinct ;  it  portrays  to  the  eye  theological  sym- 
bols with  Taddeo  Gaddi,  moralities  with  Orca- 
gna,  and  seraphic  visions  with  Fra  Angelico. 
The  painter,  arrested  by  the  spirit  of  the  middle 
ages,  remains  and  gropes  a  long  time  at  the  ioor 
of  great  art. — When  he  enters,  it  is  through  the 
discovery  of  perspective,  through  the  search  for 


254  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

relief,  through  the  study  of  anatomy,  through 
the  use  of  oil,  in  the  persons  of  Paolo  Uccello, 
Masaccio,  Fra  Filippo  Lippi,  Antonio  Pollaiolo, 
Verocchio,  Ghirlandajo,  Antonello  de  Messine, 
almost  all  of  them  pupils  in  a  goldsmith's  shop, 
friends  and  successors  of  Donatello,  Ghiberti, 
and  other  great  sculptors  of  the  age,  all  passion- 
ately devoted  to  the  study  of  the  human  figure, 
all  pagan  admirers  of  muscles  and  animal 
energy,  so  penetrated  by  the  sentiment  of  physi- 
cal life  that  their  works,  although  stiff,  defaced, 
and  infected  with  literal  imitation,  secure  for 
them  a  unique  position,  and  still  maintain  to-day 
their  full  value.  The  masters  who  have  sur- 
passed them  have  done  no  more  than  develop 
their  principle ;  the  glorious  school  of  the  Floren- 
tine renaissance  recognizes  them  for  its  found- 
ers ;  Andrea  del  Sarto,  Fra  Bartolomeo,  Michael 
Angelo,  are  their  pupils;  Raphael  resorted  to 
them  to  study,  and  one-half  of  his  genius 
belongs  to  them.  There  is  the  centre  of  Italian 
art,  and  of  high  art.  The  master  idea  of  all 
these  artists  is  that  of  the  living,  healthy,  eneiv 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AST.  255 

getic,  active  body,  endowed  with  every  athletic 
and  animal  aptitude.  "  The  important  thing  in 
the  art  of  drawing,"  says  Cellini,  "  is  to  make  a 
good  drawing  of  a  naked  man  and  woman."  He 
speaks  with  enthusiasm  of  the  admirable  bones 
of  the  head ;  "  of  the  omoplates  which,  when  the 
arm  makes  an  effort,  describe  lines  of  magnifi- 
cent effect ;  of  the  five  false  ribs  which,  when  the 
torso  bends  forward  or  backward,  form  such 
wonderful  depressions  and  projections  around 
the  navel."  ....  "Thou  must  then  draw  the 
bone  situated  between  the  two  thighs,  it  is  very 
beautiful,  and  is  called  the  crupper,  or  sacrum." 
One  of  the  pupils  of  Yerocchio,  Nanni  Grosso, 
on  dying  in  the  hospital,  rejected  an  ordinary 
crucifix  presented  to  him,  demanding  to  have 
one  by  Donatello  brought,  declaring  that 
"  otherwise  he  would  die  unshrived,  so  disagree- 
able to  him  were  the  badly  executed  works  of 
his  art."  Luca  Signorelli,  having  lost  a  beloved 
son,  caused  his  corpse  to  be  stripped  and  made 
a  minute  drawing  of  all  its  muscles  ;  these  were 
to  him  the  essential  of  the  man,  and  he  stamped 


256  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

on  his  memory  those  of  his  own  child. — At  this 
moment,  one  step  only  remains  to  be  taken  in 
order  to  complete  the  physical  man  :  more  stress 
must  be  laid  on  the  coating  of  the  muscles,  on 
the  softness  and  tone  of  the  living  skin,  on  the 
delicate  and  varied  vitality  of  the  sensitive  flesh  : 
Correggio  and  the  Venetians  take  this  step  and 
art  stands  still.  Thenceforth,  art  is  in  full 
bloom,  the  sentiment  of  the  human  body  has 
attained  to  its  completest  expression.  It  de- 
clines gradually ;  we  see  it  decreasing,  losing  a 
portion  of  its  sincerity  and  its  gravity  under 
Julio  Romano,  Rosso,  and  Primaticcio,  and  then 
degenerate  into  school  conventionalism,  aca- 
demic traditions  and  studio  prescriptions.  From 
this  moment  art  becomes  transformed,  notwith- 
standing the  well-meaning  studious  disposition 
of  the  Caracci ;  it  becomes  less  plastic  and  more 
literary.  The  three  Caracci,  their  pupils  or  their 
successors,  Domenichino,  Guido,  Guercino  and 
Baroccio,  aim  at  dramatic  effects,  bleeding  mar- 
tyrs, pathetic  scenes  and  sentimental  expres- 
sions. The  insipidities  of  sigisbeism  and  of 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  057 

devotion  mingle  with  reminiscences  of  the  heroic 
style.  You  find  graceful  heads  and  beatific 
smiles  over  athletic  bodies  and  strained  muscles. 
The  airs  and  the  affectations  of  society  peer  out 
in  dreamy  Madonnas,  in  pretty  Herodiases  and 
in  fascinating  Magdalens  commissioned  by  the 
taste  of  the  day.  Painting,  which  is  declining, 
strives  to  render  delicacies  which  the  growing 
opera  is  about  to  express.  Albano  is  a  boudoir 
painter ;  Dolci,  Cigoli  and  Sassoferrato  are  deli- 
cate, and  almost  modern,  spirits.  "With  Pietro 
da  Cortona  and  Luca  Giordano  the  grand 
scenes  of  pagan  or  Christian  legend  become 
transformed  into  agreeable  masquerades  for  the 
drawing-room ;  the  artist  is  nothing  but  a  bril- 
liant, amusing,  fashionable  improvisator,  the  art 
of  painting  coming  to  an  end  at  the  same  time 
that  the  art  of  music  begins,  that  is  to  say,  when 
the  human  brain  ceases  to  contemplate  the  ener- 
gies of  the  body,  in  order  to  turn  to  the  emotions 
of  the  heart. 

If  now  you  turn  to  the  great  foreign  schools, 
you  will   find  that  their  perfection    and  their 


258  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

excellence  were  based  upon  the  predominance  of 
the  same  character,  and  that  the  same  sentiment 
of  physical  life  engendered  the  masterpieces  of 
art  in  the  north  and  throughout  Italy.  That 
which  distinguishes  the  schools  among  each 
other  is  the  representation  by  each  of  a  tempera- 
ment, the  temperament  of  its  climate  and  of  its 
country.  The  genius  of  the  masters  consists  in 
fashioning  a  race  of  bodies  ;  thus  regarded,  they 
are  physiologists,  as  writers  are  .psychologists i 
they  expose  every  variety  and  all  the  conse- 
quences of  the  bilious,  the  lymphatic^  the  ner- 
vous or  the  sanguine  temperament,  as  the  great 
novelists  and  the  great  dramatists  expose  every 
reaction  and  every  diversity  of  the  imaginative, 
reflective,  civilizejd^  jx^ jongultured. ...soul,.  You 
are  familiar  in  the  works  of  the  Florentine 
artists  with  the  erect,  slender,  muscular  type, 
noble  in  instinct  and  with  gymnastic  aptitudes, 
such  as  may  be  evolved  from  a  sober,  graceful, 
active  race,  subtle  in  intellect  and  on  a  dry  soil. 
I  have  shown  you  in  the  Venetian  artists  the 
rounded,  undulatory,  and  regularly  developed 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  259 

forms,  the  flesh  ample  and  white,  the  hair  ruddy 
or  blond,  the  type  sensual,  sprightly  and  con- 
tented, such  as  may  be  evolved  in  a  moist  and 
luminous  region  among  Italians  whose  climate 
resembles  that  of  the  Flemings,  and  who  are 
poets  in  the  matter  of  voluptuousness.  You 
may  see  in  Rubens  the  white  or  the  pale,  the 
rosy  or  the  ruddy  German,  lymphatic,  sanguine, 
carnivorous,  and  a  great  consumer,  a  man  of  a 
northern  and  watery  soil,  liberally  fashioned,  but 
not  clumsy;  of  irregular  and  plethoric  shape, 
redundant  in  flesh,  of  brutal  and  unbridled 
instincts,  whose  flabby  pulp  suddenly  reddens 
with  the  flux  of  emotion,  becomes  easily  modi- 
fied by  the  severities  of  the  atmosphere  and 
horribly  disorganized  in  the  hands  of  death. 
The  Spanish  painters  will  place  before  your  eyes 
the  type  of  their  race,  the  wiry  and  nervous 
animal  with  firm  muscles  hardened  by  the  blasts 
of  their  sierras  and  their  scorching  sun,  tena- 
cious and  indomitable,  boiling  with  suppressed 
passion,  all  aglow  with  inward  fire,  dark,  austere 
and  spare ;  among  confused  tones  of  sombre 


200  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

stuffs  and  of  dark  clouds  which  suddenly  open 
in  order  to  disclose  an  exquisite  rose,  the  bright 
carnation  of  youth,  beauty,  love  and  enthusiasm 
diffusing  itself  over  the  blooming  cheeks.  The 
greater  the  artist  the  more  profoundly  does  he 
manifest  the  temperament  of  his  race:  without 
any  suspicion  of  it  he,  like  the  poet,  furnishes  to 
history  the  most  fruitful  documents ;  he  extracts 
and  amplifies  the  essential  of  the  physical  being 
as  the  other  extracts  and  amplifies  the  essential 
of  the  moral  being,  while  the  historian  discerns 
in  pictures  the  structure  and  corporeal  instincts 
of  a  people  as  he  discerns  in  literature  the  struc- 
ture and  spiritual  aptitudes  of  a  civilization. 


The    concordance,    then,    is    complete,    and 
characters  bear  with  them  into  a  wo^k  of  art  the 

value  which  they  already  possess  in  nature. 
According  as  they  possess  in  themselves  a 
greater  or  less  value,  they  communicate  a  greater 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART  261 

or  less  value  to  the  work.  When  they  traverse 
the  intellect  of  the  writer  or  of  the  artist,  in 
order  to  pass  from  the  real  world  into  the  ideal 
world,  they  lose  nothing  of  what  they  are ;  they 
are  found  to  be  the  same  after  as  before  the 
journey;  they  are,  as  before,  greater  or  lesser 
forces,  more  or  less  resistant  to  attack,  and  ca- 
pable of  effects  more  or  less  vast  and  profound. 
We  now  comprehend  why  the  hierarchy  of  works 
of  art  repeats  their  hierarchy.  At  the  apex  of 
nature  are  sovereign  forces  which  master  all 
others;  at  the  apex  of  art  are  masterpieces 
which  surpass  all  others ;  both  heights  are  on  a 
level,  and  the  sovereign  forces  of  nature  are 
declared  through  the  masterpieces  of  art 


52. 


THE  DEGREE  OF  BENEFICENCE  IN  THE 
OHABACTEB. 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  265 


THERE  is  a  second  point  of  view  from  which 
characters  ought  to  be  compared.  They  are 
natural  forces,  and,  in  this  respect,  they  may  be 
estimated  in  two  ways  :  we  may  consider  a  force, 
first,  in  relation  to  other  forces,  and  next  in  re- 
lation to  itself.  Considered  in  relation  to  other 
forces  it  is  greater  when  it  resists  them  and 
nullifies  them ;  considered  in  relation  to  itself  it 
is  greater  when  the  course  of  its  effects  leads  it 
not  to  diminish  but  to  increase  itself.  It  thus 
finds  two  standards,  because  it  is  subjected  to 
two  tests,  at  first  in  undergoing  the  effect  of 
other  forces,  and  next  in  undergoing  its  own 
effect.  The  first  examination  has  shown  us  the 
first  test,  and  the  higher  or  lower  rank  which 
characters  bear  according  as  they  are  more  or 
less  durable,  and  which,  subjected  to  the  same 
destructive  causes,  last  longer  and  more  intact. 
A  second  examination  will  show  us  the  second 
test,  and  the  more  or  less  exalted  position  char- 


266  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

acters  obtain  according  as,  abandoned  to  them* 
selves,  they  more  or  less  completely  end  in  an- 
nihilation, or  in  their  own  development  through 
the  annihilation  or  development  of  the  individual 
and  of  the  group  in  which  they  are  comprised* 
In  the  first  instance  we  have  descended  step  by 
step  toward  those  elementary  forces  which  con- 
stitute the  principle  of  nature  itself,  and  you  have 
seen  the  relationship  between  -art  and  science. 
In  the  second  instance  we  shall  ascend  step  by 
step  toward  those  superior  forms  which  are  the 
object  of  nature  and  in  which  you  will  see  the 
relationship  of  art  with  the  moral  order  of  things. 
We  have  considered  characters  according  as  they 
are  more  or  less  important;  we  are  about  to  con- 
sider characters  according  as  they  are  more  or 
less  beneficent. 

Let  us  commence  with  the  moral  man  and  with 
the  works  of  art  which  express  him.  It  is  evident 
that  the  characters  with  which  he  is  endowed  are 
more  or  less  beneficent,  malevolent,  or  mixed. 
We  see  daily  individuals  and  communities  pros- 
per, add  to  their  power,  fail  in  their  enterprises, 


ON  THB  IDEAL  IN  ART.  267 

rain  themselves  and  perish ;  and  each  time  if  we 
view  their  life  in  its  entirety  we  find  that  their 
fall  is  explained  by  some  vice  of  general  structure, 
by  some  exaggeration  of  a  tendency,  by  the  dis- 
proportion between  a  situation  and  an  aptitude, 
in  the  same  way  as  their  success  is  caused  by  the 
stability  of  the  inward  balance,  by  the  modera- 
tion of  some  craving  or  the  energy  of  some  facul- 
ty. In  the  stormy  current  of  life  characters  are 
weights  or  floats  which  at  one  time  make  us  glide 
along  the  bottom,  and  at  another  maintain  us  on 
the  surface.  Thus  is  a  second  scale  established ; 
characters  here  are  classified  according  as  they 
are  more  or  less  baneful  or  beneficial  to  us 
through  the  magnitude  of  the  help  or  hindrance 
which  they  contribute  to  our  life  in  order  to 
preserve  or  to  destroy  it 

The  object,  then,  is  to  live,  and,  for  the  indi- 
vidual, life  has  two  principal  directions,  knowl- 
edge and  action ;  and  this  is  why  we  can  distin- 
guish in  him  two  principal  faculties,  intelligence 
and  will.  Hence  it  follows  that  all  the  characters 
of  the  will  and  of  the  understanding  which  aid 


208  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

man  in  action  and  in  knowledge  are  beneficent, 
and  their  opposites  are  malevolent.  In  the  phi- 
losopher and  the  savant  it  is  the  exact  observa- 
tion and  memory  of  details  joined  to  the  prompt 
forecasting  of  general  laws,  and  to  the  scrupulous 
prudence  which  subjects  every  supposition  to  the 
control  of  prolonged  and  methodical  verifications. 
In  the  statesman  and  the  business-man  it  is  the 
tact  of  the  pilot,  always  on  the  alert  and  always 
certain ;  it  is  the  tenacity  of  common  sense,  the 
constant  adaptation  of  the  mind  to  the  variations 
of  things,  a  sort  of  inward  balance  ready  to  test 
all  circumjacent  forces,  an  imagination  limited 
and  reduced  to  practical  contrivances,  the  im- 
perturbable instinct  of  the  possible  and  of  the 
real.  In  the  artist  it  is  delicate  sensibility,  and 
vibrating  sympathy,  the  inner  and  involuntary 
reproduction  of  things,  the  sudden  and  original 
comprehension  of  their  dominant  character  with 
the  spontaneous  generation  of  all  surrounding 
harmonies.  You  might  find  for  each  species  of 
intellectual  effort  a  group  of  analogous  an  1  dis- 
tinct dispositions.  These  are  so  many  forces 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  269 

which  lead  man  on  to  his  ends,  and  it  is  cleat 
that  each  one  in  its  domain  is  beneficent  since  its 
alteration,  its  insufficiency,  or  its  absence  brings 
to  this  domain  impoverishment  and  sterility. — 
In  a  like  manner  and  in  the  same  sense,  the  will 
is  a  power,  and,  considered  in  itself,  a  good. 
We  admire  the  firm  resolve  which,  once  taken, 
maintains  itself  invincible  against  the  pangs  of 
physical  pain,  against  the  persistence  of  moral 
suffering,  against  the  perturbations  of  sudden 
shocks,  against  the  charm  of  tempting  seductions, 
against  every  diversity  of  the  ordeal  by  which, 
through  violence  or  tenderness,  through  mental 
excitement  or  bodily  weakness,  it  is  attempted  to 
overcome  it.  Whatever  its  support  may  be, 
whether  the  ecstasy  of  martyrs,  the  reason  of 
stoics,  the  insensibility  of  savages,  native  stub- 
bornness, or  acquired  pride,  it  is  beautiful ;  and 
not  merely  is  every  phase  of  intelligence,  lucidi- 
ty, genius,  wit,  reason,  tact,  delicacy,  but  again 
every  phase  of  will,  courage,  the  initiative,  activ- 
ity, firmness,  coolness,  are  fragments  of  the  ideal 
man  which  we  now  seek  to  construct  because 


270  Otf  TEE  WEAL  12V  AST. 

they  are  lines  of  this  beneficent  character  which 
we  have  at  first  traced. 

"We  must  now  view  this  man  as  he  is  classed. 
What  is  the  disposition  that  is  to  render  his  life 
a  benefit  to  the  society  in  which  he  is  comprised  ? 
We  are  familiar  with  the  inward  instruments 
which  are  useful  to  him  ;  where  is  the  internal 
spring  which  is  to  render  him  useful  to  others  ? 

One  there  is  which  is  unique,  the  faculty  of 
loving ;  for  to  love,  is  to  have  for  one's  end  the 
happiness  of  another,  to  subordinate  one's  self 
to  that  other,  and  labor  for  and  devote  one's  self 
to  his  welfare.  You  recognize  there  the  highest 
of  all  beneficent  characters.  It  is,  evidently, 
the  first  of  all  in  the  scale  that  we  are  forming. 
We  are  all  affected  at  its  aspect,  whatever  may 
be  its  form,  whether  generosity,  humanity,  sweet- 
ness, tenderness,  or  native  goodness.  Our  sym- 
pathy stirs  in  its  presence,  whatever  its  object 
may  be,  whether  it  constitutes  love,  properly  so 
called — the  full  surrender  of  one  human  being 
to  another  of  the  opposite  sex,  and  the  union  of 
two  lives  bound  up  in  one ;  whether  it  culminates 


UA   AHA  WJSA±,  12*  AKT.  271 

in  diverse  family  affections — that  between  pa- 
rents and  children,  or  between  brother  and  sis- 
ter; whether  it  produces  strong  friendship, 
perfect  confidence,  and  the  mutual  fidelity  01 
two  men  not  bound  together  by  the  ides  of  blood. 
The  more  vast  is  its  object,  the  more  do  we  find 
it  beautiful.  It  is  because  its  beneficence  ex- 
tends itself  along  with  the  group  to  which  it  is 
applied.  Hence  it  is  that  in  history  and  in  life 
we  reserve  our  greatest  admiration  for  that  de- 
votion which  is  rendered  in  behalf  of  general 
interests — for  patriotism  such  as  was  seen  in 
Home  in  the  time  of  Hannibal;  in  Athens,  in 
the  time  of  Themistocles ;  in  France,  in  1792; 
and  in  Germany,  in  1813 ;  for  the  great  senti- 
ment of  universal  charity,  which  has  led  Bud- 
dhist and  Christian  missionaries  among  barbarian 
people ;  for  that  impassioned  zeal  which  has 
sustained  so  many  disinterested  inventors,  and 
excited  in  art,  in  science,  in  philosophy,  in  prac- 
tical life  all  beautiful  and  useful  works  and  in- 
stitutions ;  for  all  those  superior  virtues  which, 
under  the  name  of  probity,  justice,  honor,  self- 


272  °JV  THE  IDEAL  IN  AR1. 

sacrifice,  and  self-subordination  to  some  high 
all-embracing  conception,  develops  the  civiliza- 
tion of  humanity,  and  of  which  the  stoics,  Mar- 
cus Aurelius  in  the  foremost  rank,  have  given 
us  both  precept  and  example.  I  have  no  need 
to  show  you  how,  in  the  scale  thus  constructed, 
opposite  characters  occupy  the  reverse  position. 
Long  has  this  order  of  things  been  realized. 
The  noble,  moral  theories  of  antiquity  estab- 
lished it  with  an  incomparable  wise  discernment 
and  simplicity  of  method;  Cicero,  with  a  com- 
mon sense  wholly  Roman,  has  summed  it  up  in 
his  treatise  on  the  "  Offices."  If  subsequent 
ages  have  contributed  to  it  further  developments, 
they  have  mingled  with  these  many  errors ;  and, 
in  morality  as  in  art,  we  have  always  to  resort  to 
the  ancients  in  order  to  obtain  our  maxims. 
The  philosophers  of  that  period  declared  that 
the  stoic  made  his  soul  and  intellect  conform  to 
those  of  Jupiter;*  the  men  of  that  day  might 
have  longed  to  have  Jupiter  make  his  soul  and 
intellect  conform  to  those  of  the  stoic. 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IX  ARI.  273 


n. 


To  this  classification  of  moral  values  corre- 
sponds, step  by  step,  a  classification  of  literary 
values.  All  things  equal  in  other  respects,  the 
work  which  expresses  a  beneficent  character,  is 
superior  to  the  work  which  expresses  a  malevo- 
lent character.  If,  in  two  given  works,  both 
exhibit,  with  the  same  talent  in  execution,  nat- 
ural forces  of  like  grandeur,  that  which  repre- 
sents to  us  a  hero  is  better  than  that  which 
represents  to  us  a  dolt ;  and  in  this  gallery  of 
living  works  of  art,  which  form  the  definitive 
museum  of  the  human  mind,  you  will  see  estab- 
lished, according  to  our  new  principle,  a  new 
order  of  ranks. 

At  the  lowest  step  of  all  are  the  types  pre- 
ferred by  the  literature  of  realism  and  by  the 
comic  drama ;  that  is  to  say,  simpletons  and 
egotists— limited,  weak  and  inferior  natures. 
They  are  those,  in  fact,  encountered  in  ordinary 


274  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

life,  or  those  that  can  be  turned  into  ridicule 
Nowhere  will  you  find  a  more  complete  assem- 
blage than  in  the  "  Scenes  de  la  vie  bourgeoise" 
of  Henri  Moimier.  Almost  all  good  romances 
thus  recruit  their  secondary  personages;  such 
as  the  Sancho  of  Don  Quixote ;  the  seedy 
sharpers  of  the  picaresque  romances ;  Fielding's 
squires,  parsons,  and  servants;  and  Walter 
Scott's  shrewd  lairds  and  rigid  ministers ;  all  of 
that  lower  class  of  figures  swarming  in  Balzac's 
Comedie  Humaine,  and  in  contemporary  English 
literature,  will  supply  us  with  further  examples. 
These  writers,  undertaking  to  depict  men  as 
they  are,  were  obliged  to  portray  them  incom- 
plete, mixed  up  and  inferior,  most  of  the  time 
abortive  in  their  character,  or  distorted  by  their 
condition.  As  to  the  comic  drama  it  is  sufficient 
to  cite  Turcaret,  Basile,  Orgon,  Arnolphe,  Har- 
pagon,  Tartuffe,  Georges  Dandin,  all  of  the  mar- 
quises, valets,  pedants,  and  doctors  in  Moliere. 
It  is  the  quality  of  the  comic  drama  to  lay  bare 
human  deficiencies.  Great  artists,  however,  on 
whom  the  exigences  of  their  class  of  subjects,  or 


02?  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  275 

s  love  of  stiict  truth,  imposed  studies  of  this 
sad  kind,  have  made  use  of  two  artifices  to  con- 
ceal the  mediocrity  and  repulsiveness  of  the 
characters  they  have  figured.  They  have  either 
made  of  them  accessories  or  contrasts,  which 
serve  to  bring  out  some  principal  figure  in 
stronger  relief — the  most  frequent  proceeding  of 
novelists — and  which  you  may  study  in  the  "  Don 
Quixote"  of  Cervantes,  in  Balzac's  "Eugenie 
Grandet,"  and  in  the  "Madame  Bovary"  of 
Gustavo  Flaubert ;  or  they  have  turned  our  sym- 
pathies against  the  personage,  causing  him  to 
descend  from  one  mishap  to  another,  exciting 
against  him  the  disapprobatory  and  vengeful 
laugh,  purposely  showing  off  the  unlucky  conse- 
quences of  his  inaptitude,  and  hunting  out  and 
expelling  from  life  the  defect  which  dominates  in 
him.  The  spectator,  become  hostile,  is  satisfied ; 
he  experiences  the  same  pleasure  in  seeing  folly 
and  egotism  crushed,  as  he  does  in  seeing  an 
expansion  of  goodness  and  strength;  the  ban- 
ishment of  an  evil  is  worth  a  triumph  of  the 
pood.  This  is  the  great  resource  of  comedians. 


276  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

but  novelists  likewise  make  use  of  it ;  and  yon 
may  see  its  success  not  merely  in  the  Precieuses, 
the  "Ecole  des  Femmes,"  the  "Femmes  Sa- 
vantes,"  and  numerous  other  pieces  by  Moliere, 
but  again  in  the  "Tom  Jones"  of  Fielding, 
Dickens'  "Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  and  in  the 
"  Yieille  Fille"  by  Balzac.  The  spectacle,  never- 
theless, of  these  belittled  or  crippled  spirits  ends 
by  leaving  in  the  reader's  mind  a  vague  senti- 
ment of  weariness  and  disgust,  and  even  irrita- 
tion and  bitterness.  When  they  are  very  nu- 
merous in  a  work,  and  occupy  the  prominent 
place,  one  is  disheartened.  Sterne,  Swift,  and 
the  comic  writers  of  the  Restoration,  many 
contemporary  comedies  and  romances,  the  scenes 
of  Henri  Monnier,  finally  repel  you;  the  ad- 
miration or  approval  of  the  reader  gets  to  be 
mingled  with  repugnance;  it  is  disagreeable 
to  see  vermin  even  when  we  kill  it,  and  we  de- 
mand that  we  be  shown  creations  of  a  more 
vigorous  birth  and  of  loftier  character. 

At  this  point  of  the  scale  is  placed  a  family 
of  powerful  but  incomplete  types,  and  generally 


OX  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  277 

wanting  in  balance.  Some  passion,  some  fac- 
ulty, some  disposition  or  other  of  mind  or  of 
character  is  developed  in  them  with  enormous 
accretion,  like  a  hypertrophied  organ,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  rest,  amidst  all  sorts  of  ravages 
and  misfortunes.  Such  is  the  ordinary  theme  of 
dramatic  and  philosophic  literature ;  for  the  per- 
sonages thus  moulded  are  the  best  suited  to  fur- 
nish the  writer  with  affecting  and  terrible  cir- 
cumstances, with  the  collision  and  revolutions  of 
sentiments,  and  the  inward  tribulation  of  which 
he  has  need  for  his  drama ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  are  the  best  adapted  to  manifest  to 
the  thinker  the  mechanisms  of  thought,  the 
fatalities  of  organization,  all  the  obscure  forces 
which  act  in  us  without  our  consciousness  of 
them,  and  which  are  the  blind  sovereigns  of  our 
being.  You  will  find  them  among  the  Greek, 
Spanish,  and  French  tragedians,  in  Lord  Byron 
and  Victor  Hugo,  in  most  of  the  great  novelists, 
from  Don  Quixote  down  to  "Werther  and  Madame 
Bovary.  All  those  have  set  forth  the  dispropor- 
tion between  man  and  himself,  and  with  the 


278  ON  THE  ILEAL  IN  ART. 

world,  the  dominion  of  some  mastering  passion 
or  idea :  in  Greece,  pride,  revenge,  warring  rage, 
murderous  ambition,  filial  vengeance,  all  the 
natural  and  spontaneous  sentiments;  in  Spain 
and  in  France,  chivalric  honor,  exalted  love,  re- 
ligious fervor,  all  the  monarchical  and  cultivated 
sentiments ;  and  in  Europe  of  our  day,  the  inner 
malady  of  man  discontented  with  himself  and 
with  society.  But  nowhere  has  this  race  of  ve- 
hement and  suffering  spirits  propagated  itself  in 
species  more  vigorous,  more  perfect,  and  more 
distinct  than  with  the  two  great  judges  of  man, 
Shakespeare  and  Balzac.  That  which  they  al- 
ways depict  from  choice  is  some  gigantic  force 
self-destructive  or  destructive  of  another.  Ten 
times  out  of  twelve  the  principal  personage  is  a 
maniac  or  a  knave  ;  he  is  endowed  with  the 
strongest  and  subtlest  faculties,  and  sometimes 
with  the  most  generous  and  most  delicate  senti- 
ments; but  through  a  defectiveness  of  inward 
organization,  or  through  lack  of  superior  direc- 
tion, these  forces  either  lead  to  his  ruin,  or  un- 
chain themselves,  to  the  detriment  of  others: 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  279 

either  the  superb  engine  explodes,  or  it  injures 
those  it  encounters  on  its  way.  In  enumerating 
die  heroes  of  Shakespeare,  Coriolanus,  Hotspur, 
Hamlet,  Lear,  Timon,  Leontes,  Macbeth,  Othello, 
Antony,  Cleopatra,  Borneo,  Juliet,  Desdemona, 
Ophelia,  we  find  all,  the  most  heroic  and  the 
purest,  swept  away  either  by  the  fury  of  a  blind 
imagination,  the  agitations  of  frenzied  sensi- 
bility, the  tyranny  of  flesh  and  blood,  mental 
hallucination,  or  the  irresistible  flood  of  rage  or 
of  love,  to  which  must  be  added  the  perverted 
and  carnivorous  souls  who  spring  like  lions  on 
the  human  flock,  lago,  Bichard  HE.,  and  Lady 
Macbeth,  all  those  who  have  expelled  from  their 
veins  the  last  drop  of  "  the  milk  of  human  kind- 
ness ;"  and  you  will  find  in  Balzac  the  two  cor- 
responding groups  of  figures,  on  the  one  hand 
the  monomaniacs  Hulot,  Clae's,  Goriot,  Cousin 
Pons,  Louis  Lambert,  Grandet,  Gobseck,  Sarra- 
zine,  Frauenhofer,  Gambara,  collectors,  lovers, 
artists,  and  misers ;  and  on  the  other,  the  beasts 
of  prey  Nucingen,  Vautrin,  du  Tillet,  Pliilippe 
Bridau,  Bastignac,  du  Marsay,  an<l  the  Marneffes, 


280  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

male  and  female,  usurers,  sharpers,  courtezans, 
business-men,  and  ambitious  characters,  power- 
ful and  monstrous  specimens  throughout,  gen- 
erated from  the  same  ideas  as  those  of  Shakes- 
peare, but  brought  forth  in  greater  travail  in  an 
atmosphere  breathed  and  vitiated  by  more  hu- 
man generations,  with  a  less  youthful  blood,  and 
with  every  deformity,  every  disease,  and  every 
blemish  of  an  older  civilization.  These,  among 
literary  works,  are  the  most  profound;  they 
manifest  better  than  others  the  important  char- 
acter^, the  elementary  forces,  the  deepest  strata 
of  Human  nature.  In  reading  them  we  experi- 
ence a  kind  of  grandiose  emotion,  that  of  a  man 
let  into  the  secret  of  things,  admitted  to  the  con- 
templation of  the  laws  which  govern  the  soul, 
society,  and  history.  Notwithstanding  this,  they 
leave  on  the  mind  a  painful  impression ;  we  be- 
hold too  much  misery  and  too  many  crimes ;  the 
passions  developed  and  in  mortal  encounter  dis- 
play too  great  ravages.  Before  opening  the  book 
we  contemplated  things  on  their  outside,  tran- 
quilly and  mechanically,  like  a  worthy  citizen 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  281 

gazing  (in  a  customary  and  monotonous  parade 
of  troops.  The  writer  has  taken  our  hand  and 
conducted  us  to  the  battle-field ;  we  see  the 
shock  of  armies  beneath  murderous  volleys  oi 
musketry,  and  the  soil  is  strewn  with  theii 
dead. 

Advancing  a  step  further,  we  encounter  com- 
plete personages,  true  heroes.  We  find  many 
such  in  the  dramatic  and  philosophic  literature 
of  which  I  have  just  spoken  to  you.  Shakes- 
peare and  his  contemporaries  have  multiplied 
perfect  images  of  feminine  innocence,  goodness, 
virtue,  and  delicacy;  down  through  every  suc- 
cessive age  their  conceptions  have  reappeared 
under  diverse  forms  in  English  romance  and 
drama,  the  latest  of  the  descendants  of  Miranda 
and  Imogen  being  found  in  the  Esthers  and  the 
Agnes  of  Dickens.  Pure  and  noble  characters 
are  not  wanting  in  Balzac  himself;  Margaret 
Clae's,  Eugenie  Grandet,  the  Marquis  d'Espars, 
and  the  Medecin  de  Campagne  are  models.  We 
might  even  find  many  writers  in  the  vast  range 
of  literature  who  have  intentionally  brought  on 


282  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

the  stage  lofty  characters  and  beautiful  senti- 
ments, such  as  Corneille,  Richardson,  and  George 
Sand,  the  one  in  Polyeucte,  the  Cid,  and  the  Ho- 
ratii,  in  representing  dialectic  heroism ;  the  other 
in  Pamela,  Clarissa,  and  Grandison,  in  giving 
voice  to  protestant  virtue  ;  the  other  in  Mauprat, 
Frangois  le  Champi,  the  Mare  au  Diable,  Jean 
de  la  Roche,  and  so  many  other  recent  works,  in 
depicting  native  generosity.  Sometimes,  finally, 
a  superior  artist  like  Goethe  in  his  Hermann  and 
Dorothea,  and  especially  in  his  Iphigenia,  Ten- 
nyson in  the  Idyls  of  the  King  and  in  the 
Princess,  have  attempted  to  aspire  to  the  highest 
point  of  the  ideal.  But  while  we  have  fallen 
from  it,  they  return  to  it  only  through  the  cu- 
riosity of  artists,  the  abstractions  of  recluses, 
and  the  researches  of  archaeologists.  As  to  the 
rest,  when  they  bring  perfect  personages  on  the 
stage,  it  is  at  one  time  as  moralists  and  at  an- 
other as  observers.  In  the  former  case,  in  ordei 
to  sustain  a  thesis  with  an  evident  tinge  of  cold- 
ness or  of  predilection ;  in  the  latter  case,  with 
a  commingling  of  human  traits,  radical  imper- 


ON  TUB  WEAL  IN  ART.  283 

fections,  local  prejudices,  and  ancient,  proximate, 
or  possible  errors,  which  brings  the  ideal  near  to 
the  real  figure,  but  which  tarnishes  the  splendor 
of  its  beauty.  The  atmosphere  of  advanced 
civilizations  is  not  congenial  to  it;  it  appears 
elsewhere,  in  epic  and  in  popular  literature, 
when  inexperience  and  ignorance  allow  the  im- 
agination its  full  flight.  There  is  an  epoch  for 
each  of  the  three  groups  of  types,  and  for  each 
of  the  three  groups  of  literary  productions ;  they 
are  originated,  the  one  at  the  decline,  the  other 
during  the  maturity,  and  the  other  in  the  first 
stage  of  a  civilization.  At  highly  cultivated  and 
very  refined  epochs,  in  nations  somewhat  de- 
crepit, in  the  age  of  hetairsB,  in  Greece,  in  the 
saloons  of  Louis  XTV.,  and  in  our  own,  appear 
the  lowest  and  the  truest  types,  a  comic  and 
realistic  literature.  At  mature  epochs,  when  so- 
ciety is  at  its  full  development,  when  man  stands 
midway  in  some  grand  career,  in  Greece  in  the 
fifth  century  (B.  0.),  in  Spain  and  in  England  at 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth,  in  France  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  and  to-day,  appear  the  robust 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

and  enduring  types,  a  dramatic  and  philosophic 
literature.  In  the  intermediary  epochs,  which 
are  on  the  one  side  a  maturity  and  on  the  other 
a  decline — the  present  day,  for  example — the  two 
ages  commingle  through  a  reciprocal  encroach- 
ment, and  each  of  them  engenders  the  creations 
of  the  other,  together  with  its  own.  But  cre- 
ations truly  ideal  are  fertile  only  in  primitive  and 
simple  epochs ;  and  it  is  always  at  remote  ages, 
at  the  origin  of  peoples,  amidst  the  dreams  of 
human  infancy,  that  we  must  ascend  in  order  to 
find  heroes  and  gods.  Each  people  has  its  own ; 
it  has  brought  them  forth  from  its  own  heart,  it 
nourishes  them  with  its  own  legends,  and,  in  pro- 
portion as  it  advances  into  the  unexplored  soli- 
tude of  new  ages  and  of  future  history,  their 
immortal  images  shine  before  its  eyes  like  so 
many  beneficent  genii  appointed  to  conduct  and 
protect  it.  Such  are  the  heroes  of  the  genuine 
epics — Siegfried  in  the  "  Niebelungen,"  Roland 
in  our  old  chansons  de  geste"  the  Cid  in  the 
"  Komancero,"  Eostan  in  the  "  Livre  des  Hois," 
Antar  in  Arabia,  Ulysses  and  Achilles  in 


Off  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  285 

Greece.  Farther  up,  aud  in  a  higher  sphere,  are 
the  revelators,  saviors,  and  gods,  those  of  Greece 
depicted  in  the  Homeric  poems,  those  of  India 
dimly  visible  in  the  Yedic  hymns,  in  the  epics  of 
antiquity,  in  Buddhist  legends,  those  of  Judea 
and  of  Christianity  represented  in  the  Psalms, 
in  the  Gospel,  in  the  Apocalypse,  and  in  that 
continuous  chain  of  poetic  confessions  of  which 
the  last  and  the  purest  links  are  the  "  Fioretti" 
and  the  "  Imitation."  There,  man  transfigured 
and  ennobled,  attains  all  his  plenitude;  deified 
or  divine  he  lacks  nothing.  If  his  mind,  his 
strength,  or  his  goodness  have  limits,  it  is  in  our 
eyes  and  from  our  point  of  view.  They  do  not 
exist  in  the  eyes  of  his  race  and  of  his  age ; 
whatever  the  imagination  had  conceived,  faith 
imparted  to  him;  he  is  at  the  zenith,  and,  all 
abreast  of  him  at  the  zenith  of  works  of  art,  are 
placed  sublime  and  genuine  works  which  have 
borne  his  idea  without  bending  under  its  weight 


280  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AHT 


IIL 

Let  us  now  consider  the  physical  man  with 
the  arts  which  portray  him,  and  seek  what  are 
for  him  beneficent  characters.  The  first  of  all, 
without  doubt,  is  perfect  health,  even  exuberant 
health.  A  suffering,  emaciated,  languid,  atten- 
uated body  is  more  feeble;  that  which  we  call 
the  living  animal  is  a  mass  of  organs  with  a  mass 
of  functions :  every  partial  arrest  is  a  step  toward 
total  arrest ;  illness  is  incipient  destruction,  an 
approach  to  death. — For  the  same  reason  it 
is  necessary  to  class  the  integrity  of  the  natural 
type  among  beneficent  characters,  and  this  re- 
mark leads  us  very  far  toward  the  conception  of 
a  perfect  body.  For  it  not  only  excludes  from  it 
gross  deformities,  deviations  of  the  spine  and  of 
the  limbs,  and  all  of  the  vile  which  a  pathological 
museum  can  present,  but  also  the  slight  changes 
a  trade,  a  profession,  and  social  life  can  intro- 
duce into  the  inward  and  outward  relations  of 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  287 

the  individual.  A  blacksmith  has  arms  too  long  • 
a  stonecutter  has  the  spine  curved;  a  pianist  has 
hands  furrowed  with  tendons  and  veins,  length- 
ened to  excess  and  terminating  by  flattened 
fingers ;  a  lawyer,  a  physician,  an  official  and  a 
business  man  bears  in  his  relaxed  muscles  and 
on  his  drawn  visage  the  universal  stamp  of  his 
cerebral  and  sedentary  life.  The  effects  of  cos- 
tume, and  especially  of  modern  costume,  are 
not  less  injurious ;  it  is  only  a  loose  float- 
ing vestment,  easily  and  often  abandoned,  the 
sandal,  the  chlamys,  the  antique  peplum,  which 
does  not  incommode  the  natural  body.  Our 
shoes  squeeze  together  the  toes  of  the  foot  which 
are  hollowed  out  on  their  sides  by  the  contact ; 
the  corsets  and  boddices  of  our  women  contract 
their  shape.  Observe  men  bathing  in  summer, 
and  enumerate  the  many  melancholy  or  grotesque 
deformities,  among  others  the  crude  and  pallid 
color  of  the  skin ;  it  has  lost  its  adaptability  to 
light,  its  tissue  is  no  longer  firm  ;  it  shivers  and 
roughens  at  the  slightest  breath  of  air ;  it  is 
exiled,  and  is  no  longer  in  harmony  with  sur- 


288  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

rounding  objects ;  it  differs  as  much  from  healthy 
flesh  as  a  stone  recently  taken  from  a  quarry 
differs  from  a  rock  a  long  time  exposed  to  rain 
and  sunshine:  both  have  lost  their  natural 
tone  and  are  disinterments.  Follow  out  this 
principle  to  the  end :  by  dint  of  discarding  all 
the  changes  which  civilization  imposes  on  the 
natural  body  you  will  see  appear  the  primary 
lineaments  of  the  perfect  body. 

Now  let  us  see  it  at  work.  Its  motion  and 
action  are  one.  We  will  enumerate  then  all  its 
capacities  of  physical  motion  as  beneficial  attri- 
butes ;  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  be  apt  and 
ready  for  all  the  exercises  and  uses  of  force,  to 
have  the  framework,  the  proportions  of  members, 
the  fulness  of  chest,  the  suppleness  of  articula- 
tions and  muscular  resistance  necessary  to  run, 
jump,  carry,  strike,  combat,  and  resist  effort  and 
fatigue.  We  will  give  it  all  these  corporeal 
perfections  without  making  the  one  detrimental 
to  the  other;  they  shall  all  exist  in  it  in  the 
highest  degree,  but  balanced  and  harmonious : 
it  is  not  necessary  that  force  should  imply  weak' 


VX  THE  WEAL  IN  ART.  289 

ness  and  that  in  order  to  be  developed  it  should 
be  diminished.  This  is  not  yet  all.  To  athletic 
aptitudes  and  to  gymnastic  preparation  we  shall 
add  a  soul,  that  is  to  say,  a  will,  intelligence,  and 
a  heart.  The  moral  being  is  the  term  and  the 
flower,  as  it  were,  of  the  physical  animal  :  if  the 
former  were  lacking  the  latter  would  not  be  com- 
plete ;  the  plant  would  seem  a  failure,  it  would 
not  have  its  supreme  crown,  and  a  body  so  per- 
fect is  not  finished  except  by  a  perfect  souL* 
"We  shall  show  this  soul  in  all  the  economy  of 
the  body,  in  attitude,  in  the  form  of  the  head,  in 
the  expression  of  the  countenance  ;  we  shall  feel 
that  it  is  free  and  healthy,  or  superior  and  grand. 
We  shall  divine  its  intelligence,  its  energy  and 
its  nobleness  ;  but  we  shall  do  no  more  than  di- 
vine them.  "We  shall  indicate  them,  we  shall  not 
put  them  forth  prominently  :  we  cannot  put  them 


This  definition  of  Aristotle,  so  profound,  might  have  been 
written  by  all  the  Grecian  sculptors;  it  is  the  mother-idct 
of  Hellenic  civilization. 


290  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

forth  prominently ;  if  we  attempted  it  we  should 
injure  the  perfect  body  that  we  desire  to  repre- 
sent. For  spiritual  life  in  man  is  opposed  to 
corporeal  life ;  when  he  is  superior  in  the  former 
he  is  inferior  or  subordinate  in  the  latter;  he 
regards  himself  as  a  soul  embarrassed  with  a 
body,  his  frame  becomes  an  accessory ;  in  order 
to  think  more  freely  he  sacrifices  it,  he  shuts  it 
up  in  a  workshop,  he  lets  it  shrivel  or  become 
relaxed ;  he  is  even  ashamed  of  it,  his  excessive 
modesty  covers  it  up  and  he  conceals  it  almost 
entirely ;  he  ceases  to  recognize  it,  he  no  longer 
sees  but  the  thinking  or  the  expressive  organs, 
the  skull-coating  of  the  brain,  the  physiognomical 
interpreter  of  the  emotions ;  the  rest  is  an  ap- 
pendage hidden  by  the  robe  or  by  the  coat. 
High  civilization,  complete  development,  pro- 
found elaboration  of  the  soul  cannot  be  in  keep- 
ing with  an  athletic,  naked  body  skilled  in  gym- 
nastics. The  meditative  brow,  delicacy  of  feature, 
the  wrinkled  physiognomy  would  be  out  of  place 
with  the  members  of  a  wrestler  and  athlete. 
For  this  reason  when  we  would  imagine  a  perfect 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AST.  291 

body  we  should  take  man  at  this  epoch  and  in 
this  intermediary  situation,  where  the  soul  has 
not  yet  relegated  the  body  to  a  secondary  place, 
where  thought  is  a  function  and  not  a  tyranny, 
where  the  mind  is  not  yet  a  disproportinate  and 
monstrous  organ,  where  a  balance  is  maintained 
among  all  the  parts  of  human  activity,  where 
life  flows  ample  and  moderate,  like  a  beautiful 
stream,  between  the  inadequacy  of  the  past  and 
the  outbursts  of  the  future. 


IV. 


According  to  this  order  of  physical  values, 
we  may  class  the  works  of  art  which  represent 
the  physical  man,  and  show  that,  all  things 
being  equal  in  other  respects,  the  works  will 
be  more  or  less  beautiful  according  as  they 
shall  more  or  less  completely  express  the  char- 
acters whose  presence  is  a  benefit  to  the  body 

At  the  lowest  step  is  found  the  art  whicn, 


292  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

intentionally,  suppresses  them  all.  It  begins 
with  the  fall  of  ancient  paganism,  and  lasts 
until  the  Renaissance.  From  the  epoch  of 
Cominodus  and  of  Diocletian  you  see  sculpture 
profoundly  deteriorated ;  imperial  and  con- 
sular busts  lose  their  serenity  and  their  noble- 
ness ;  surliness,  agitation  and  languor,  bloated 
cheeks  and  elongated  necks,  individual  convul- 
siveness  and  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  occupa- 
tion replace  harmonious  health  and  energetic 
activity.  You  arrive  gradually  at  the  mosaics 
and  the  paintings  of  Byzantine  art ;  at  the  ema- 
ciated, lank,  and  stiffened  Christs  and  Pana~ 
gia,  mere  manikins,  oftentimes  veritable  skele- 
tons, whose  cavernous  eyes,  large  white  cor- 
neas, thin  lips,  meager  face,  low  brow,  spare 
and  inert  hands  give  the  impression  of  a  con- 
sumptive and  idiotic  ascetic.  In  a  lesser 
degree  the  same  malady  prevails  throughout 
the  art  of  the  middle  ages ;  on  looking  at  the 
stained-glass,  the  statues  in  cathedrals  and  at 
primitive  paintings,  it  seems  as  if  the  human 
race  had  degenerated,  and  that  human  blood 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  293 

had  become  impoverished ;  consumptive  saints, 
dislocated  martyrs,  flat-breasted  virgins  with 
too  long  feet  and  knotty  hands,  dried-up 
recluses  empty  of  all  substance,  Christs  which 
seem  crushed  and  bloody  annelides,  proces- 
sions of  dull,  hardened,  and  gloomy  people; 
on  whom  are  impressed  all  the  deformities  of 
misery  and  all  the  constraints  of  oppression. 
When,  on  drawing  near  to  the  Renaissance, 
the  human  plant,  utterly  emaciated  and  dis- 
torted, begins  again  to  vegetate,  it  does  not 
immediately  recover  itself;  its  sap  is  not  yet 
pure.  Health  and  energy  do  not  re-enter  the 
human  body  except  by  degrees;  it  requires  a 
century  in  order  to  cure  it  of  its  inveterate 
scrofula. 

Among  the  masters  of  the  fifteenth  century 
you  still  find  numerous  signs  which  denote  the 
ancient  consumption  and  the  immemorial  fast : 
in  Hemling,  at  the  Bruges  hospital,  faces  quite 
out  of  the  monastic  pale,  heads  too  big,  brows 
bulging  out  through  the  exaggerations  of  mys- 
tic reverie,  meager  arms,  the  monotonous  pla- 


294  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

cidity  of  a  passive  life  preserved  like  a  pale 
flower  in  the  shade  of  the  cloister;  in  Era 
Angelico  attenuated  bodies  hidden  beneath 
radiant  copes  and  robes,  reduced  to  the  con- 
dition of  beatified  phantoms,  no  breasts,  elon- 
gated heads  and  protuberant  brows;  in  Albert 
Durer  thighs  and  arms  too  thin,  bellies  too 
large,  ungraceful  feet,  anxious,  wrinkled  and 
worn  countenances,  pale  and  wan  Adams  and 
Eves,  all  chilly  and  benumbed,  to  whom  one 
would  like  to  give  clothes;  among  almost  all, 
this  form  of  the  skull  which  recalls  the  fakirs 
or  the  hydrocephalous,  and  those  hideous  in- 
fants, scarcely  viable,  a  species  of  tadpole, 
whose  enormous  head  is  prolonged  by  a  flabby 
body,  and  then  by  a  slender  appendage  of 
wriggled  and  twisted  members.  The  early 
masters  of  the  Italian  Kenaissance,  the  true 
restorers  of  ancient  paganism,  the  Florentine 
anatomists  Antonio  Pollaiolo,  Verochio,  Luca 
Signorelli,  all  the  predecessors  of  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  themselves  retain  a  remnant  of  the  orig- 
inal blemish :  in  their  figures  the  vulgarity 


ON  TEE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  295 

of  the  beads,  the  ugliness  of  the  feet,  the  pro- 
jections of  the  knees  and  of  the  clavicles,  the 
ridges  of  the  muscles,  the  painful  and  con- 
torted attitude,  all  show  that  strength  and 
health,  restored  to  their  throne,  have  not 
brought  back  with  them  all  their  companions, 
and  that  they  are  still  wanting  in  two  muses, 
those  of  ease  and  serenity.  When,  at  length, 
the  goddesses  of  antique  beauty,  all  recalled 
from  exile,  resume  over  art  their  legitimate 
sway,  they  are  found  sovereign  only  in  Italy; 
in  the  North  their  authority  is  intermittent  or 
incomplete.  The  Germanic  nations  only  half 
recognize  it;  still  is  it  necessary,  as  in  Flan- 
ders, that  they  should  be  Catholics;  the  Pro- 
testants, as  in  Holland,  free  themselves  from 
it  altogether.  The  latter  better  appreciate 
truth  than  beauty ;  they  prefer  important  char- 
acters to  beneficent  characters,  the  life  of  the 
spirit  to  the  life  of  the  body,  the  depths  of 
individual  personality  to  the  regularity  of  the 
general  type,  the  intense  and  disturbed  dream 
to  clear  and  harmonious  contemplation,  the 


296  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AST. 

poesy  of  inward  sentiment  to  the  exterior  de- 
light of  the  senses.  Rembrandt,  the  greatest 
painter  of  this  race,  has  recoiled  from  no  phys- 
ical ugliness  and  deformity :  begrimed  visages 
of  Jews  and  usurers,  the  crooked  spines  and 
bandy  legs  of  beggars  and  cripples,  slovenly 
cooks  whose  gross  flesh  still  shows  marks  of 
the  corset,  bowed  knees  and  flabby  bellies, 
hospital  subjects  and  shreds  and  tatters,  He- 
brew incidents  which  seem  copied  in  a  Rot- 
terdam hovel,  scenes  of  temptation  where 
Potiphar's  wife,  jumping  out  of  bed,  makes 
the  spectator  comprehend  Joseph's  flight; 
bold  and  painful  grasp  of  the  naked  reality 
however  repulsive.  Such  painting,  when  it  is 
successful,  goes  beyond  painting;  like  that  of 
Fra  Angelico,  Albert  Durer  and  Hemling,  it 
is  a  poesy ;  the  object  of  the  artist  is  to 
manifest  a  religious  emotion,  philosophic  div- 
inations, a  general  conception  of  life;  the 
human  form,  the  proper  object  of  the  plastic 
arts,  is  sacrificed;  it  is  subordinated  *o  an 
idea  or  to  some  other  element  of  art.  In- 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  297   ^^ 

deed,  with   Rembrandt,  the  chief   interest    °f   xaL 
the    picture    is  not  man,  but  the  tragedy  of   \J^ 
expiring,   diffused,   palpitating   light  incessant-   fr   H 
ly    competing    with    invading    shadow.       But 
if,    quitting    these    extraordinary    or    eccentric 
geniuses,  we  consider  the  human  body  as  the J  -^ 
true  obJicTT  of"  picturesque  imitation  we^must  r 
recognize  that  the  painted  or  sculptured  figures  i 
which  lack  force,  health,  and  the  rest  of  cor-  j 
poreal    perfections,    descend,    taken    in    them-j 
selves,  to  the  lowest  degree  of  art. 

Around  Rembrandt  is  a  group  of  painters 
of  inferior  genius,  and  who  are  called  the 
minor  Flemings,  Ostade,  Teniers,  Gerard  Dow, 
Adrien  Brouwer,  Jans  Steen,  De  Hoogh,  Ter- 
burg,  Metzu  and  many  others.  Their  person- 
ages, ordinarily,  consist  of  the  bourgeois  or  the  ^ 
lower  class  of  people;  they  have  taken  them 
just  as  they  saw  them  in  the  markets  and 
in  the  streets,  in  houses  and  in  taverns;  fat, 
well-to-do  burgomasters,  respectable  lymphatic 
ladies,  spectacled  schoolmasters,  busy  cooks, 
corpulent  innkeepers,  merry  tipplers,  clowns, 


298  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AMT. 

boors  and  bumpkins  of  the  stable  and  the 
farm,  the  shop  and  the  tavern.  Louis  XIY. 
seeing  them  in  his  gallery  exclaimed,  "Take 
away  those  low  fellows !"  The  personage,  in 
short,  they  depicted  is  a  body  of  an  inferior 
species,  cool  in  blood,  wan  and  of  reddish  hue, 
diminutive  in  figure  with  irregular,  vulgar,  and 
often  coarse  features,  fitted  for  a  sedentary 
and  mechanical  life  and  wanting  in  that  sup- 
pleness and  activity  which  belong  to  the 
athlete  and  the  runner.  They  have,  moreover, 
left  to  it  all  the  servilities  of  social  life,  every 
mark  of  the  calling,  condition  and  dress,  every 
deformity  which  the  mechanical  occupation  of 
the  peasant  and  ceremonial  restraint  of  the  bour- 
geois impose  on  physical  structure  and  on  the 
expression  of  the  face.  Their  work,  however,  is 
redeemed  by  other  qualities  :  one  that  we  have 
examined  above,  that  is  to  say,  the  represen- 
tation of  the  important  characters,  and  the  art 
of  manifesting  the  essential  of  a  race  and  of 
an  epoct;  the  other,  which  we  shall  examine 
by-and-by,  namely,  harmony  of  color  and  skill 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  298 

in  composition.  Apart  from  this,  considered  in 
themselves,  their  personages  give  pleasure  to  the 
eye ;  they  are  not  over-excited  and  intellectual- 
ly morbid,  or  suffering  and  stricken  like  the 
preceding  class;  they  are  in  good  condition 
and  contented  with  life;  they  are  comfortable 
in  their  homes  and  hovels;  a  pipe  and  a 
glass  of  beer  are  sufficient  to  make  them  happy ; 
they  are  not  agitated  and  not  restless;  they 
laugh  heartily  or  look  before  them  without  wish- 
ing more.  Bourgeois  and  gentlemen,  they  are 
happy  to  know  that  their  clothes  are  new,  that 
their  floors  are  well  waxed,  and  that  their  win- 
dow-panes are  clean.  Domestics,  peasants, 
shoemakers,  and  even  mendicants,  their  cabins 
appear  comfortable  to  them  and  they  are  con- 
tented seated  on  a  stool ;  we  see  that  they  take 
pleasure  in  punching  with  their  awls  or  in 
scraping  their  carrots.  Their  obtuse  senses  and 
their  cold  imagination  do  not  carry  them  beyond 
their  entire  countenance  is  calm  or  refreshed, 
simple  or  fatherly :  such  is  the  happiness  of  the 
phlegmatic  temperament,  and  happiness,  thai  is 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

to  say  moral  and  physical  health,  is    beauty 
everywhere  and  even  here. 

"We  come  now,  at  length,  to  grandiose  figure* 
in  which  the  human  animal  attains  to  his  full 
force  and  stature.  Such  are  those  of  the  Ant- 
werp masters,  Grayer,  Gerard  Seghers,  Van  Oost, 
Everdingen,  Van  Thulden,  Abraham  Janssens, 
Theodore  Bombouts,  Jordaen-s  and  Rubens  in 
the  first  rank.  Here  we  see  bodies  free  of  all 
social  constraint,  with  which  there  is  not  and 
has  not  been  any  interference ;  they  are  either 
nude  or  carelessly  draped ;  if  they  are  clothed 
it  is  with  fantastic  and  magnificent  costumes 
which  are  for  their  members  not  an  obstruction 
but  a  decoration.  Nowhere  have  freer  attitudes, 
more  impetuous  action,  more  vigorous  and 
ampler  muscles  been  found.  Rubens'  martyrs 
are  furious  giants  and  rampant  wrestlers.  The 
torsos  and  thighs  of  his  female  saints  are  those 
of  fauns  and  bacchantes.  The  fuming  wine  of 
health  and  joyousness  circulates  impetuously  in 
their  overfed  bodies;  it  overflows  Like  supera- 
bundant sap  in  splendid  carnations,  in  unre- 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  301 

strained  gestures,  in  colossal  gayeties,  in  the 
superb  fury  of  excitement;  the  ruddy  stream 
of  blood  which  comes  and  goes  in  their  veina 
darts  life  through  them  with  a  jet  so  opulent 
and  so  free  that  every  other  human  creature 
seems  fettered  and  colorless.  It  is  an  ideal 
world,  and  when  we  perceive  it  there  is  given 
us,  as  it  were,  a  great  sweep  of  wing  which 
bears  us  away  above  our  own.  But  it  is  not 
the  highest  of  all.  There  the  appetites  are 
sovereign,  there  one  scarcely  goes  beyond  the 
vulgar  life  of  the  stomach  and  of  the  senses. 
There  desire  fires  the  eye  with  too  fierce  a 
flame;  the  sensual  smile  dwells  too  constant- 
ly on  the  lascivious  lips ;  the  gross  body, 
voluptuously  rounded,  is  not  adapted  to  every 
diversity  of  virile  activity ;  it  is  only  capable 
of  a  bestial  impulse  and  gluttonous  satiety: 
the  flesh,  too  sanguine  and  too  soft,  runs 
over  into  exaggerated  and  irregular  forms ; 
man  is  cut  out  on  a  grand  scale  but  with 
rough  strokes.  He  is  narrow,  violent,  and 
often  cynical  and  scurrilous:  high  qualities  of 


302  ON  THE  IDEAL  iN  ART. 

intellect  are  wanting  in  him,  he  is  not  noble. 
Hercules  here  is  not  a  hero  but  an  ox-killer. 
Having  the  muscularity  of  a  bull  he  possesses 
the  spirit  of  one ;  and  man,  such  as  Rubens 
conceived  him,  seems  a  flourishing  brute  whose 
instincts  condemn  him  to  the  repletion  of  the 
pasture  or  to  the  fury  of  combat. 

It  remains  for  us  to  find  a  human  type  in 
which  moral  nobility  completes  physical  per- 
fection. For  this  purpose  we  will  quit  Flanders 
and  betake  ourselves  to  the  land  of  the  beau- 
tiful. We  will  traverse  the  Italian  Low  Coun- 
tries, I  mean  Venice,  and  see  in  its  painting  an 
approach  to  the  perfect  type :  amplitude  of  flesh, 
but  confined  to  a  form  more  refined ;  widespread 
joyousness,  but  of  a  finer  nature;  broad  and 
undisguised  voluptuousness,  but  exquisite  and 
lustrous  ;  vigorous  heads  and  souls  bound  up 
with  present  life,  but  with  intelligent  counte- 
nances, reflective  and  dignified  physiognomies, 
honest  and  aristocratic  minds.  We  will  then  go 
to  Florence  and  contemplate  that  school  from 
which  issued  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  into  which 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  303 

Raphael  entered,  and  who,  with  Ghiberti,  Do- 
natello,  Andrea  del  Sarto,  Fra  Bartolomeo  and 
Michael  Angelo,  discovered  the  most  perfect 
type  to  which  modern  art  has  attained.  Con- 
template the  "  St.  Vincent "  of  Era  Bartolomeo, 
the  "  Madonna  of  the  Sack  "  of  Andrea  del  Sarto, 
Raphael's  "  School  of  Athens,"  the  Medici 
Monument,  and  the  arch  of  the  Sistine  Chapel 
by  Michael  Angelo :  behold  bodies  as  they 
ought  to  be ;  in  the  presence  of  this  race  of  men, 
others  are  either  weak,  effeminate,  gross  or 
badly  balanced.  Not  only  have  their  figures 
the  firm  and  vigorous  health  which  invincibly 
resists  the  attacks  of  life;  not  only  are  they 
exempt  from  every  blemish  and  from  every 
constraint  which  the  exigences  of  human  society 
and  the  conflict  with  the  surrounding  world 
bring  to  us  ;  not  only  do  rhythm  of  structure  and 
freedom  of  attitude  manifest  in  them  every  fac- 
ulty of  activity  and  of  movement;  but  again, 
their  heads,  their  features,  the  totality  of  all 
their  forms  attest  at  one  time,  as  in  Michael 
Angelo,  the  energy  and  the  sublimity  of  the  will 


304  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

at  another,  as  in  Raphael,  the  immertal  sweetness, 
and  repose  of  the  soul ;  at  another,  as  with 
Leonardo  da  Yinci,  the  elevation  and  exquisite 
refinement  of  the  intelligence  without,  however, 
in  either  case,  the  extreme  subtility  of  moral 
expression  being  in  contrast  with  the  nudity  of 
the  body  or  with  the  perfection  of  limb,  without 
the  too  great  ascendency  of  the  thought  or  of 
the  organs  withdrawing  the  human  being  from 
that  ideal  heaven  where  all  powers  accord  in 
greater  harmony.  Their  personages  may  strive 
and  wax  wroth  like  the  heroes  of  Michael  An- 
gelo,  or  meditate  and  smile  like  the  women  of 
Da  Vinci,  or  live  and  be  happy  in  living  like  the 
Madonnas  of  Raphael ;  the  great  point  is  not 
the  momentary  action  in  which  they  are  engaged, 
but  their  entire  structure.  The  head  is  only  a 
portion  of  it ;  the  breast,  arms,  joints  and  pro- 
portions, the  entire  form  speaks  and  conspires 
to  place  before  our  eyes  a  creature  of  another 
species  than  our  own ;  before  them  we  are  ag 
monkeys  or  as  the  Papuans  before  ourselves. 
We  cannot  place  them  at  any  positive  point  of 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  305 

history  in  order  to  find  them  a  world;  we  are 
obliged  to  relegate  them  to  the  sequestered 
recesses  of  legend.  The  poesy  of  distance  or 
the  majesty  of  theogonies  can  alone  furnish  a 
soil  worthy  to  nourish  them.  Before  Eaphael's 
Sibyls  and  Virtues,  before  Michael  Angelo's 
Adams  and  Eves,  we  think  of  the  heroic  or 
serene  figures  of  primitive  humanity,  of  the  vir- 
gin daughters  of  the  earth  and  of  the  streams 
whose  great  eyes  first  reflected  the  azure  of  the 
paternal  sky,  of  the  naked  combatants  who 
descended  from  their  mountain  fastnesses  to 
strangle  lions  in  their  arms.  In  withdrawing 
from  such  a  spectacle  we  believe  that  our  work 
is  done,  and  that  we  cannot  go  beyond.  And 
yet  Florence  is  only  the  second  patrimony  of 
the  beautiful ;  Athens  is  the  first.  A  few  heads 
and  statues  that  have  escaped  the  wreck  of  anti- 
quity, the  "  Venus  of  Milo,"  the  Parthenon  mar- 
bles, the  bust  of  Juno  Queen,  in  the  villa  Ludo- 
visi,  will  show  you  a  still  loftier  and  purer  race 
you  will  dare  to  recognize,  by  comparison,  that 
in  Raphael's  figures  sweetness  is  often  somewhat 


S06  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

too  placid,  and  that  the  square-set  bodies  are 
often  a  little  too  massive  ;*  that  in  Michael 
Angelo's  figures  the  soul-tragedy  is  too  visibly 
announced  by  over-swollen  muscles  and  an  ex- 
cess of  effort.  The  true  visible  gods  are  born 
elsewhere  and  in  a  purer  atmosphere.!  A 
simpler  and  more  spontaneous  civilization,  a 
better  balanced  and  finer  race,  a  better  adapted 
religion,  a  better  understood  culture  of  the  body 
formerly  set  apart  a  nobler  type  of  a  more  tran- 
quil bearing,  of  a  more  august  serenity,  of  a 
more  uniform  and  freer  action,  and  of  a  more 
facile  and  more  natural  excellence ;  it  has 
served  as  model  to  the  Renaissance  artists,  and 
the  art  which  we  admire  in  Italy  is  but  a  shoot, 
less  upright  and  less  lofty,  of  the  Ionian  laurel 
transplanted  to  another  soil. 

*  The  Dresden  "  Madonna  de  San  Sisto  "  and  "  La  Bella 
Jardiniere." 

f  The  Venusea,  Psyches,  Graces,  Jupiters  ace1  Cupida  <V 
the  Farnesini  palace. 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  307 


Such  is  the  double  scale  according  to  which 
the  characters  of  objects  and  the  values  of 
works  of  art  are  simultaneously  classified.  Ac- 
cording as  characters  are  more  important  or 
beneficent  they  hold  a  higher  place  and  raise 

_^_ ,.    ,T  .-.^-^^^.••m^r  I  *~~mm~*ifv      •* 

to"*  a  higher  rank  the  works  of  art  by  which 


they  are  expressed.  Note  that  importance  and 
beneficence  are  two  phases  of  a  single  quality, 
namely,  force,  considered  in  turn  in  relation  to 
others  and  to  itself.  In  the  first  case  it  is 
more  or  less  important  according  as  it  resists 
greater  or  lesser  forces.  In  the  second  case  it 
is  baneful  or  beneficent  according  as  it  borders 
on  its  own  weakness  or  on  its  own  extension. 
These  two  points  of  view  are  the  most  ele- 
vated from  which  nature  can  be  considered,  see- 
ing that  they  turn  our  eye  at  one  time  toward 
its  essence,  at  another  toward  its  direction 
In  its  essence  it  is  a  mass  of  brute  forces  un- 


308  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

equal  in  magnitude,  whose  conflict  is  eternal, 
but  whereof  the  whole  sum  and  labor  ever  re- 
main the  same.  In  its  direction  it  is  a  series 
of  forms  wherein  the  husbanded  force  has  the 
prerogative  of  a  continuous  renovation,  and 
even  of  an  augmentation.  At  one  time  char- 
acter is  one  of  these  primitive  and  mechanical 
forces  constituting  the  essence  of  things;  at 
another  it  is  one  of  those  ulterior  forces  capa- 
ble of  augmentation  marking  the  direction  of 
the  world;  and  we  comprehend  why  art  is  su- 
perior when,  taking  nature  for  its  object,  it 
manifests  at  one  time  some  profound  portion 
of  its  inner  depths,  and  at  another  some  lead- 
ing epoch  of  its  development. 


53. 

THE  CONVERGING  DEGBEE  OF  EFFECTS 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  811 

After  having  considered  characters  in  them- 
selves it  remains  for  us  to  examine  them  when 
incorporated  in  a  work  of  art.  Not  only  is  it 
necessary  that  in  themselves  they  should  have 
the  greatest  possible  value  but  likewise  is  it 
ncessary  that  in  a  work  of  art  they  should  be- 
come as  paramount  as  possible.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  they  become  more  manifest  and  hold  a 
more  prominent  place ;  in  this  way  only  will  they 
become  more  apparent  than  in  nature.  To  this 
end  it  is  evidently  necessary  that  all  parts  of  a 
work  should  contribute  to  their  manifestation. 
No  element  should  remain  passive  or  divert  the 
attention  in  another  direction ;  it  would  be  a 
force  wasted  or  a  force  employed  in  a  counter 
sense.  In  other  words,  in  a  picture,  in  a  statue, 
in  a  poem,  in  an  edifice,  and  in  a  symphony  all 
the  effects  should  converge  to  one  point.  The 
degree  of  this  convergence  marks  the  place  of 
the  work,  and  you  will  see  a  third  scale  erected 
alongside  of  the  two  first  to  measure  the  value 
of  works  of  art. 


312  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 


Let  us  at  first  take  the  arts  which  disclose  the 
moral  man,  and  above  all  literature.  We  will 
begin  by  distinguishing  the  diverse  elements 
which  constitute  a  drama,  an  epic  or  a  romance, 
in  brief  a  work  which  places  before  us  acting 
agents.  In  the  first  place  there  are  agents  in  it, 
that  is  to  say  personages  endowed,  all  of  them, 
with  a  distinct  character ;  and  in  a  character  we 
may  recognize  many  parts.  From  the  moment, 
says  Homer,  "  an  infant  first  falls  on  the  knees 
of  a  woman,"  he  possesses,  at  least  in  germ, 
faculties  and  instincts  of  a  certain  kind  and  to  a 
certain  degree ;  he  is  a  compound  of  his  father, 
of  his  mother,  of  his  family  and,  in  general,  of 
his  race  ;  furthermore,  inherited  qualities,  trans- 
mitted through  the  blood,  take  in  him  dimen- 
sions and  proportions  by  which  he  is  distin- 
guished from  his  compatriots  and  from  his 
relatives.  This  innate  moral  foundation  is  allied 


ON  THE  IDEAL  AY  ART.  313 

to  a  physical  temperament,  and  the  whole  to- 
gether forms  the  primitive  combination  which 
education,  example,  training,  all  subsequent 
events  and  actions  of  infancy  and  of  youth  are 
to  oppose  or  to  complete.  When  these  different 
forces,  instead  of  neutralizing,  re-enforce  each 
other,  this  convergence  of  forces  stamps  itself 
deeply  on  man,  and  there  appear  strong  and 
striking  characters.  This  convergence  is  often 
wanting  in  nature ;  it  never  fails  in  the  work  of 
great  artists :  it  is  thus  that  their  characters, 
although  composed  of  the  same  elements  as  real 
characters  are  more  powerful  than  real  charac- 
ters. They  prepare  their  personages  minutely 
and  remotely ;  when  they  are  presented  to  us 
we  feel  that  they  cannot  be  otherwise  than  they 
are.  A  vast  framework  supports  them ;  a  pro- 
found logic  has  built  them  up.  Nobody  has  pos- 
sessed this  gift  to  the  same  extent  as  Shake- 
speare. If  you  attentively  read  each  of  his 
parts  you  will  find  at  every  step,  in  a  word,  in  a 
gesture,  in  an  outburst  of  the  imagination,  in  a 
desultory  flow  of  ideas,  in  the  turn  of  a  phrase, 


314  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

an  echo  and  an  index  revealing  to  you  the  in- 
ward state,  the  entire  past  and  the  future  of  the 
personage  before  you.* 

These  are  his  substrata.  Organic  temperament, 
original  or  acquired  aptitudes  and  tendencies,  the 
complex  growth  of  ideas  and  of  remote  or  recent 
habits,  all  the  sap  of  human  nature  infinitely  trans- 
formed from  its  most  primitive  roots  to  its  latest 
offshoots  have  contributed  to  produce  the  actions 

*  Othello,  in  his  last  moments,  recurring  to  his  travels  and 
his  infancy,  a  phenomenon  frequent  enough  in  suicides, 

of  one  whose  hand, 

Like  the  base  Judean,  threw  a  pearl  away] 
Richer  than  all  his  tribe ;  of  one  whose  subdued  eyes 
Albeit  unused  to  the  melting  mood, 
Drop  tears  as  fast  as  the  Arabian  trees 
Their  medicinal  gum 

In  Macbeth  the  sudden  invasion  at  the  first  word  of  his 
homicidal  and  ambitious  hallucination,  a  phenomenon  fre- 
quent with  monomaniacs : 

My  thought  whose  murder  yet  is  but  fantastical 
Shakes  so  my  single  state  of  man,  that  function 
Is  smother'd  in  surmise,  and  nothog  is 
But  what  is  not 


ON  THE  LDBAL  IN  ART.  815 

and  the  expressions  which  form  their  terminal 
jet.  This  multitude  of  present  forces  and  this 
concordance  of  concentrated  effects  were  neces- 
sary in  order  to  animate  figures  like  Coriolanus, 
Macbeth,  Hamlet,  and  Othello,  and  to  form, 
nourish,  and  exalt  the  master-passion  which  is 
to  nerve  and  to  usher  them  forth.  With  Shake- 
speare may  I  name  a  modern,  almost  a  contem- 
porary, Balzac,  the  most  gifted  of  all  those  who 
in  our  time  have  minted  the  treasures  of  our 
moral  nature.  No  one  has  better  shown  the 
formation  of  man,  the  successive  stages  of  his 
varied  stratifications,  the  superposed  and  inter- 
secting effects  of  relationship,  of  early  impres- 
sions, of  conversation,  of  studies,  of  friendships, 
of  professions,  of  habitation,  of  the  innumerable 
imprints  which  day  after  day  come  and  stamp 
themselves  on  our  soul  in  order  to  give  to  it  its 
consistency  and  its  form.  He,  however,  is  a 
novelist  and  a  savant  instead  of  being,  like 
Shakespeare,  a  poet  and  dramatist;  hence,  in- 
stead of  concealing  his  substrata  he  displays 
them ;  you  will  find  them  extensively  enumerated 


316  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART 

in  his  infinite  descriptions  and  dissertations,  in  his 
circumstantial  portraits  of  a  house,  of  a  face,  or 
of  a  costume,  in  his  preparatory  accounts  of  an 
infancy  or  an  education,  and  in  his  technical 
explanations  of  an  invention  or  of  a  process. 
But  his  art,  substantially,  is  the  same,  and  when 
he  builds  up  personages,  such  as  Hulot,  Pere 
Grandet,  Philippe  Brideau,  the  old  maid,  a  spy, 
a  courtezan,  a  great  business-man,  his  talent 
always  consists  in  accumulating  an  enormous 
quantity  of  formative  elements  and  moral  influ- 
ences into  one  channel  and  in  one  direction^  like, 
so  many  streams  which  swell  and  precipitate  the 

*     v  v^;^<^,.^iI*;>N^^-^iv'^%^:&^-^:v'M~/^^*^^ 

same  current. 

A  second  group  of  elements  in  the  literary 
work  consists  of  situations  and  events.  The 
character  conceived,  it  is  necessary  that  the  con- 
flict to  which  it  is  subjected  should  be  suitable 
for  its  manifestation.  In  this  respect,  art,  again, 
is  superior  to  nature,  for,  in  nature  things  do  not 
always  thus  transpire.  Some  great  and  imposing 
character  remains  there  buried  and  inert  for  lack 
either  of  opportunity  or  of  temptation.  If  Crom* 


ON  THE  WEAL  IN  ART.  317 

well  had  not  happened  to  be  in  the  midst  of  the 
English  Revolution  he  would  probably  have  kept 
up  the  same  life  he  led  for  forty  years  in  his 
own  family  and  district,  that  of  a  rural  propri- 
etor, town-magistrate,  and  rigid  puritan  sole- 
ly concerned  with  his  manures,  his  animals, 
his  children,  and  his  scruples  of  conscience. 
Postpone  the  French  Revolution  three  years  and 
Mirabeau  would  have  been  only  a  gentleman 
without  social  position,  an  adventurer,  and  man 
of  pleasure.  On  the  other  hand,  a  mediocre  or 
feeble  character  who  was  not  equal  to  tragic 
events  might  have  been  equal  to  ordinary  events. 
Suppose  Louis  XVI.  to  have  been  born  in  a 
middle-class  family,  and  to  have  been  an  employe* 
or  a  proprietor  with  a  moderate  fortune :  he 
might  have  lived  tranquilly  and  highly  esteemed ; 
he  might  have  honestly  fulfilled  his  daily  task  ; 
we  might  have  seen  him  attentive  to  his  business, 
gentle  with  his  wife,  a  good  father  to  his  chil- 
dren; in  the  evening  by  his  fireside  he  might 
have  taught  them  geography,  and  on  Sunday, 
after  the  service,  he  would  have  amused  them 


318  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AST. 

with  his  locksmith's  tools.  The  organized  being 
whom  nature  subjects  to  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence is  like  a  ship  which  has  just  glided  from 
the  stocks  into  the  water;  it  requires  a  strong 
wind  or  a  light  breeze  according  as  it  is  either  a 
frigate  or  a  skiff;  the  gale  which  impels  the 
frigate  founders  the  skiff,  and  the  light  breeze 
which  makes  the  skiff  dance  lets  the  frigate  re- 
main motionless  in  port.  It  is  accordingly  neces- 
sary that  the  artist  should  adapt  his  situations 
to  his  characters.  You  have  here  a  second  con- 
cordance and  there  is  no  necessity  to  show  you 
that  great  artists  never  fail  to  establish  it.  What 
we  call  intrigue  or  action  among  them  is  simply 
a  series  of  events  and  an  order  of  situations  ar- 
ranged with  a  view  to  manifest  characters,  to 
probe  natures  to  their  depths,  to  bring  up  to  the 
surface  profound  instincts  and  unknown  faculties 
which  the  monotonous  current  of  habit  prevents 
from  emerging  into  day,  in  order  to  measure,  as 
in  Corneille,  the  force  of  their  will  and  the 
grandeur  of  their  heroism,  in  order  to  expose,  as 
in  Shakespeare,  the  lusts,  madness,  and  fury,  the 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AST.  319 

strange  devouring  monsters  which  blindly  rage 
and  roar  in  the  depths  of  our  hearts.  These 
experiences  are  varied  relatively  to  the  same 
personage  ;  they  can  accordingly  be  so  disposed 
as  to  always  render  them  effective  :  this  is  the  cre- 
scendo of  all  writers ;  they  make  use  of  it  in  each 
petty  action  as  in  the  entire  conception,  and  thus 
culminate  in  some  supreme  victory  or  in  some 
supreme  defeat.  You  perceive  that  the  law  is  as 
applicable  in  the  details  as  in  the  masses.  Por- 
tions of  a  scene  are  grouped  together  in  view 
of  a  certain  effect;  all  effects  are  combined 
in  view  of  a  denouement ;  the  entire  story  is  con- 
structed in  view  of  the  natures  which  we  wish 
to  bring  upon  the  stage.  The  noteworthy  class 
and  the  visible  character  are  due  to  the  qualities 
which  converge  or  persist  in  them ;  this  con- 
vergence of  the  entire  character  and  of  its  suc- 
cessive situations  manifests  the  essence  of  the 
character,  and  even  its  elements  in  drawing  it 
out  to  a  definite  success  or  to  a  final  overthrow.* 

•  See  "  La  Fontaine  et  sea  Fables,"  by  H.  Taine,  8d  part, 
for  thu  principle  of  convergences. 


320  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

One  last  element  remains,  that  of  style.  It  is 
in  fact,  the  sole  apparent £1194.  flie  othertwo  are 
simply  its  substrata  ;  it  is  a  dress  for  them  and 
it  appears  only  on  the  surface.  A  book  is  merely 
a  set  of  phrases  which  the  author  utters  or 
makes  his  personages  utter ;  our  exterior  eyes 
and  ears  lay  hold  of  nothing  more,  and  whatever 
else  is  perceived  by  hearing  and  sight  is  con- 
veyed to  them  only  through  the  medium  of  these 
same  phrases.  Hence  there  is  a  third  element 
of  superior  importance,  the  effect  of  which  must 
accord  with  the  effect  of  others  in  order  that  the 
total  impression  may  be  the  greatest  possible. 
But  a  phrase  taken  in  itself  is  capable  of  diverse 
forms  and,  consequently,  of  diverse  effects.  It 
may  be  one  verse  followed  by  other  verses ;  it 
may  comprise  several  verses  of  equal  or  of  un- 
equal length,  of  rhythms  and  rhymes  diversely 
arranged,  enabling  you  to  appreciate  the  full 
wealth  of  metre.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may 
form  one  line  of  prose  followed  by  other  lines 
of  prose ;  and  these  lines  are  at  one  time  linked 
together  in  a  period,  at  another  are  cut  up  into 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  321 

little  isolated  phrases,  at  another  they  are  com* 
posed  in  torn  of  short  periods  and  phrases, 
enabling  you  to  perceive  the  full  wealth  of  syn- 
tax.— Finally  the  words  which  compose  the 
phrases  have  a  character  of  their  own ;  accord- 
ing to  their  origin  and  their  ordinary  use  they 
are  noble  and  generous,  or  dry  and  technical,  or 
familiar  and  striking,  or  abstract  and  dull,  or 
brilliant  and  picturesque.  In  short,  a  phrase 
uttered  is  a  combination  of  forces  which  at  once 
awaken  in  the  reader  the  logical  instinct,  the 
musical  aptitude,  the  acquisitions  of  memory, 
and  the  fires  of  the  imagination,  and  thrills  the 
whole  man  through  the  nerves,  the  senses,  and 
the  habits.  It  is  necessary  therefore  that  the 
style  should  be  in  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the 
work ;  there  is  therein  a  final  convergence,  and 
on"  this  domain  the  art  of  the  great  writers  is 
witlkODI  limit ;  their  toot  tt  of  axtraaxdmary  deli- 
cacy and  their  invention  is  of  inexhaustible  fer- 
tility :  we  do  not  find  in  them  a  rhythm,  a  turn,  a 
construction,  a  word,  a  sound  or  a  combina- 
tion of  words,  sounds,  and  phrases  whose  value 


322  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

is  not  felt  and  whose  use  is  not  intentional 
Here  again  art  is  superior  io  nature ;  for  through 
this  choice,  this  ..transf ormaticm,  .ai 
style  the  imaginary  pftramrngfl  gpe,afc« 
more  conformably  to  his  character  than  the  real 
personage.  Without  here  entering  into  the 
subtleties  of  art,  and  without  going  into  the  de- 
tail of  processes,  we  easily  perceive  that  verse  is 
a  sort  of  song  and  prose  a  sort  of  conversation 
that  the  stately  alexandrine  line  raises  the  voice 
up  to  a  sustained  and  noble  accent,  and  that  the 
short  lyrical  strophe  is  still  more  musical  and 
still  more  exalted;  that  the  clear  short  phrase 
has  the  imperious  or  tripping  tone ;  that  the  long 
period  has  the  oratorical  inspiration  and  the 
majestic  emphasis;  in  short,  that  every  form 
of  style  determines  a  state  of  the  soul,  either  ex- 
pansion or  tension,  transport  or  indifference,  or- 
der or  disorder,  and  that  therefore  the  effects 
of  situations  and  of  characters  are  diminished  or 
heightened  according  as  the  effects  of  style  fol- 
low in  the  contrary  sense  or  in  the  same  sense 
Suppose  that  Racine  should  adopt  the  style  of 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AR1 

Shakespeare,  and  Shakespeare  that  of  Racine, 
their  work  would  be  absurd  or  rather  they  would 
not  be  able  to  write ;  the  seventeenth  century 
phrase,  so  clear,  so  well-proportioned,  so  purified, 
so  well  put  together,  so  well  adapted  to  a  palace 
discourse  is  incapable  of  expressing  the  crude 
passions,  and  imaginative  sallies,  the  inward  and 
irresistible  tempest  which  vents  itself  in  the 
English  drama.  On  the  other  hand,  the  six- 
teenth century  phrase,  at  one  time  familiar  and 
at  another  lyrical,  venturesome,  harsh  and  dis- 
jointed would  be  a  blemish  if  put  in  the  mouths 
of  the  polished,  well-educated,  and  accomplished 
personages  of  French  tragedy.  Instead  of  a 
Racine  and  a  Shakespeare  you  would  have 
Drydeus  and  Otways  and  a  Ducis  and  Casimir 
Delavigne.  Such  is  the  power  and  such  the  con- 
ditions of  style.  The  characters  which  situa- 
tions unfold  to  the  mind  are  manifested  to  the 
senses  only  through  language,  and  the  conver- 
gence of  the  three  forces  gives  to  the  character 
all  its  prominence.  The  more  the  artist  has 
discriminated  and  made  converge  in  his  work 


324  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

numerous  elements  and  capable  of  effect,  the 
more  the  character  which  he  wishes  to  place  in 
light  becomes  prominent.  The  whole  of  art  lies 
in  two  words,  concentration  in  mantfestation. 


IL 


According  to  this  principle  we  may  class  once 
more  various  literary  works.  All  things  equal  in 
other  respects,  they  will  be  more  or  less  beau- 
tiful according  to  the  greater  or  less  complete- 
ness of  the  convergence  of  effects  in  them  ;  and, 
through  a  singular  coincidence,  this  rule  applied 
to  the  schools,  establishes,  between  the  suc- 
cessive stages  of  the  same  art,  the  divisions 
which  history  and  experience  have  already  in- 
troduced into  them. 

At  the  commencement  of  every  literary  age 
we  remark  a  period  of  gestation ;  art  is  weak 
and  infantile  ;  it  is  because  the  convergence  of 
effects  is  insufficient  there,  and  the  fault  is  due 


ON  THE  WEAL  IN  AB2.  325 

to  the  ignorance  of  the  writer.  He  is  not  want- 
ing in  inspiration  ;  he  has  it  and  often  in  a  nat- 
ural and  vigorous  way;  talent  abounds  at  this 
moment ;  noble  forms  flit  obscurely  through  the 
depths  of  the  soul;  but  processes  are  not 
known ;  people  do  not  know  how  to  write,  how 
to  distribute  the  parts  of  a  subject,  how  to  em- 
ploy literary  resources.  Such  is  the  defect  of 
early  French  literature  in  the  middle-ages.  In 
reading  the  "  Chanson  de  Koland,"  "  Benaud  de 
Montauban,"  "Ogier  le  Danois,"  you  quickly 
perceive  that  the  men  of  this  age  entertained 
grand  and  original  sentiments ;  a  new  society 
had  been  organized ;  the  crusades  were  in  prog- 
ress ;  the  proud  independence  of  the  baron,  the 
indomitable  fidelity  of  the  vassal,  military  and 
heroic  habits,  strength  of  body  and  simplicity  of 
heart  provided  poesy  with  characters  equal  to 
those  of  Homer.  It  only  half  profited  by  them  ; 
it  has  felt  their  beauty  without  being  able  to 
render  it.  The  trouvere  was  laic  and  French, 
that  is  to  say,  born  of  a  race  ever  prosaic  and 
at  that  day  so  situated  as  to  be  deprived  of 


326  ON  TJftt  IDEAL  IN  AST. 

superior  culture  by  clerical  monopoly.  He 
narrates  in  a  dry  and  coarse  manner ;  he  has 
not  the  broad  and  brilliant  imagery  of  Homer 
and  of  antique  Greece  ;  his  story  is  tame  ;  his 
monorhythmic  stanza  repeats  thirty  times  in  suc- 
cession the  same  monotonous  stroke  of  the  bell. 
He  is  not  master  of  his  subject;  he  does  not 
know  how  to  curtail,  develop  and  proportion,  to 
prepare  a  scene  and  strengthen  an  effect.  His 
work  takes  no  place  in  the  literature  of  all  time  ; 
it  disappears  from  the  world,  and  only  engages 
the  attention  of  antiquaries.  If  it  is  successful 
it  is  through  isolated  works,  through  a  "Nie- 
belungen  "  in  Germany,  where  the  old  national 
foundation  has  not  been  upturned  by  the  eccle- 
siastical establishment ;  through  the  "  Divine 
Comedy "  in  Italy,  where  Dante,  by  a  supreme 
effort  of  labor,  enthusiasm  and  genius  finds,  in  a 
mystic  and  learned  poem,  the  unlooked-for 
union  of  lay  sentiments  and  theological  theories. 
When  art  revives  in  the  sixteenth  century  other 
examples  show  us  the  same  want  of  convergence, 
resulting,  at  first,  in  the  same  insufficiency.  Mar- 


ON  TEE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  327 

low,  the  early  English  dramatist,  is  a  man  oi 
genius ;  he  felt,  like  Shakespeare,  the  fury  of 
violent  passions,  the  sombre  grandeur  of  north- 
ern melancholy,  the  tragic  poesy  of  contempo- 
rary history;  but  he  did  not  know  how  to 
manage  dialogue,  vary  circumstances,  graduate 
situations  and  contrast  characters ;  his  process 
is  only  continuous  murder  and  speechless  death ; 
his  drama  is  powerful,  but  rusted  out,  and  only 
known  to  the  curious.  In  order  that  his  tragic 
conception  of  life  may  bloom  out  before  all  eyes 
and  in  full  daylight,  it  is  necessary  that  & 
greater  genius  after  him,  furnished  with  ac- 
cumulated experience,  should  brood  a  second 
time  over  the  same  spirits  ;  it  is  necessary  that 
Shakespeare,  after  having  himself  groped  his 
way  more  than  once,  should  imbue  the  crude 
sketches  of  his  precursor  with  the  varied,  full 
and  profound  life  for  which  primitive  art  had 
proved  inadequate. 

On  the  other  hand,  at  the  end  of  every  literary 
era  we  remark  a  period  of  decadence ;  art  here 
becomes  corrupt,  worn  out,  and  stiffened  through 


328  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

routine  and  conventionalism.  Here  also  th« 
convergence  of  effects  is  wanting,  but  the  fault  is 
not  due  to  ignorance.  On  the  contrary,  people 
have  never  been  so  cultivated ;  all  methods  have 
been  perfected  and  refined ;  they  have  even  be- 
come common  property ;  whoever  desires  to 
make  use  of  them  can  avail  himself  of  them. 
The  language  of  poetry  is  complete  ;  the  feeblest 
writer  knows  how  a  phrase  is  constructed,  how 
rhymes  are  coupled  together,  and  how  to  bring 
about  a  catastrophe.  It  is  feeble  sentiment 
which  lowers  art.  The  great  conception  which 
formed  and  sustained  the  works  of  the  masters, 
droops  and  perishes ;  it  is  preserved  only 
through  reminiscences  and  tradition.  It  is  no 
longer  pursued  to  the  end ;  changes  are  effected 
in  it  by  introducing  into  it  another  spirit ;  it  is 
supposed  to  be  perfected  by  incongruities. 
Such  was  the  situation  of  the  Grecian  drama  in 
the  time  of  Euripides,  and  of  the  French  drama 
in  the  time  of  Voltaire.  The  outward  form 
remained  the  same  as  before ;  but  the  spirit  that 
animated  it  was  transformed,  and  the  contrast  is 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  329 

disagreeable.  Euripides  retains  the  accessories; 
the  choruses,  the  metre  and  the  heroic  and 
divine  personages  of  ^Eschylus  and  of  Sophocles. 
But  he  degrades  them  down  to  the  level  of  the 
sentiments  and  the  plottings  of  ordinary  life ;  he 
makes  them  discourse  like  lawyers  and  sophists  ; 
he  delights  in  exposing  their  misfortunes,  weak- 
nesses and  lamentations.  Voltaire  accepts  or 
takes  upon  himself  the  proprieties  and  the 
mechanism  of  Racine  and  of  Corneille,  the  con- 
fidants, high-priests,  princes  and  princesses, 
chivalric  and  graceful  love-making,  alexandrine 
stanzas — a  recognized  and  noble  style— dreams, 
oracles  and  divinities.  But  he  adds  an  exciting 
intrigue  borrowed  from  the  English  stage ;  he 
attempts,  moreover,  to  give  it  historic  varnish ; 
he  forces  into  it  philosophical  and  humanita- 
rian intentions;  he  insinuates  attacks  against 
kings  and  priests ;  he  is  the  innovator  and  the 
thinker  out  of  season  and  out  of  place.  With 
both  of  them  the  various  elements  of  the  work 
no  longer  concur  to  the  same  result.  Antique 
drapery  is  foreign  to  modern  sentiments  •  modern 


330  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

sentiments  do  violence  to  antique  drapery.  The 
personages  are  nonplused  between  two  roles 
those  of  Voltaire  are  princes,  enlightened  by  the 
"  Encyclopedia ; "  those  of  Euripides  are  heroes, 
polished  in  the  schools  of  the  rhetorician.  Un- 
der this  double  mask  their  figure  flickers ;  we  no 
longer  see  it ;  or  rather,  they  do  not  live  except 
by  fits  and  starts,  and  at  rare  intervals.  Here 
the  reader  abandons  this  world,  which  is  self- 
destructive,  and  seeks  works  in  which,  according 
to  the  model  of  living  creatures,  all  the  parts  are 
organs  which  conspire  to  the  same  result. 

We  find  them  at  the  central  point  of  literary 
ages,  at  the  moment  when  art  is  in  flower; 
previously  it  is  in  germ,  a  little  later  it  be- 
comes faded.  At  this  moment  the  convergence 
of  effects  is  complete,  and  an  admirable  har- 
mony equalizes  amongst  them  characters,  style 
and  action.  This  moment  is  encountered  in 
Greece  in  the  times  of  Sophocles  and,  if  I  am 
not  mistaken,  still  better  in  the  time  of  JEs- 
chylus  when  tragedy,  true  to  its  origins,  is  yet 
0  dithyrambic  chant,  when  the  religious  senti- 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  331 

ment  of  the  initiated  is  thoroughly  infused  into 
it,  when  the  gigantic  forms  of  heroic  or  divine 
legend  possess  their  full  stature,  when  fatality, 
arbiter  of  human  life,  and  justice,  custodian  of 
social  life,  spin  and  cut  the  threads  of  destiny, 
to  the  sounds  of  a  poesy  obscure  like  an  ora- 
cle, terrible  as  a  prophecy,  and  sublime  as  a 
vision.  You  may  see  in  Racine  the  perfect 
concordance  of  oratorical  skill,  of  pure  and  no- 
ble diction,  of  learned  composition,  of  well- 
planned  denoument,  of  dramatic  decorum,  of 
princely  politeness,  and  of  the  delicacies  and 
proprieties  of  the  court  and  the  drawing-room. 
You  will  find  a  like  concordance  in  the  com- 
plex and  composite  work  of  Shakespeare  if 
you  observe  that,  depicting  man  intact  and  com- 
plete, he  has  had  to  employ  the  most  poetic 
verses  side  by  side  with  the  most  familiar 
prose,  every  contrast  of  style  in  order  to  man- 
ifest in  turn  the  heights  and  the  depths  of 
human  nature,  the  exquisite  delicacy  of  female 
characters  and  the  uncontrollable  violence  of 
men's  characters,  the  crnde  coarseness  of  pop- 


332  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

ular  manners,  and  the  over-refined  polish  ol 
worldly  ceremonial,  the  gossip  of  current  con- 
versation and  the  enthusiasm  of  extreme  emo- 
tion, the  surprises  of  petty  vulgar  occurrences 
and  the  fatality  of  unrestrained  passions.  How- 
ever different  the  methods  may  be  they  always, 
with  great  writers,  converge;  they  converge  in 
the  fables  of  La  Fontaine  as  in  the  funeral 
orations  of  Bossuet,  in  Voltaire's  tales  as  in 
the  stanzas  of  Dante,  in  Byron's  Don  Juan  as 
in  Plato's  Dialogues,  among  the  ancients  as 
among  the  moderns,  among  the  romanticists  as 
among  the  classicists.  The  example  of  the 
masters  imposes  no  fixed  form,  style  or  arrange- 
ment on  their  successors.  If  one  succeeds  in 
one  way,  another  succeeds  in  an  opposite  way  ; 
one  point  only  is  essential,  which  is  that  his 
whole  work  should  move  forward  on  the  same 
line;  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  direct  all 
its  forces  toward  a  given  end.  Art,  like  na- 
ture, casts  its  objects  in  every  mould ;  only,  in 
order  that  the  object  be  viable  it  is  necessary, 
in  art  as  in  nature,  that  the  parts  should  con- 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  333 

stitute  a  whole,  and  that  the  least  part  of  the 
least  element  should  be  subordinate  to  the 
whole. 

m. 

It  remains  to  us  to  consider  the  arts  which 
manifest  the  physical  man,  and  to  recognize 
their  various  elements,  especially  those  of 
painting,  the  richest  of  all.  What  we  observe 
at  first  in  a  picture  are  the  living  bodies  with 
which  it  is  filled ;  and  in  these  bodies  we  have 
already  distinguished  two  principal  parts  :  the 
general  framework  of  bone  and  muscle,  that  is 
to  say  the  naked  muscles;  and  the  external 
covering  which  protects  them,  that  is  to  say, 
the  impressionable  and  colored  skin.  You  see 
at  once  that  these  two  elements  must  be  in 
harmony.  The  white  and  feminine  skin  of 
Correggio  is  not  found  on  the  heroic  muscular- 
ities of  Michael  Angelo. — And  so  is  it  in  respect 
to  a  third  element,  attitude  and  physiognomy; 
certain  smiles  comport  only  with  certain  bodies ; 


334  ON  THE  WEAL  IN  ART. 

never  does  an  over-fed  wrestler,  an  ostentatious 
Susannah,  a  fleshy  Magdalen  of  Eubens  dis- 
play the  pensive,  delicate  and  profound  ex- 
pression which  Da  Yinci  imparts  to  his  coun- 
tenances. These  are  only  the  grosser  and 
more  outward  concordances ;  there  are  others 
much  more  profound  and  not  less  necessary. 
All  the  muscle,  bone,  and  articulations,  all 
parts  of  the  physical  man  have  a  significative 
virtue ;  each  of  them  may  express  various  char- 
acters. The  great  toe  and  the  clavicle  of  a 
doctor  are  not  those  of  a  combatant ;  the  least 
part  of  the  body  contributes  through  its  ampli- 
tude, its  form,  its  color,  its  dimensions,  its  con- 
sistency, to  rank  the  human  animal  amongst 
one  or  the  other  species.  There  is  here  a  large 
number  of  elements  whose  effects  must  con- 
verge; if  the  artist  is  ignorant  of  any  of  them 
he  lessens  his  power ;  if  he  causes  one  to  be 
tontradictory  he  partially  destroys  the  effect  of 
tha  other.  Hence  it  is  that  the  Renaissance 
masters  have  so  deeply  studied  the  human 
body;  hence  it  is  that  Michael  Angelo  passed 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  335 

twelve  years  in  dissecting.  This  was  no  pedan- 
try, no  minutia  of  literal  observation.  The 
exterior  parts  of  the  human  body  are  the 
treasury  of  sculptor  and  painter  as  the  interior 
parts  of  the  human  soul  are  the  treasury  of 
the  novelist  and  the  dramatist.  The  projection 
of  a  tendon  is  as  important  for  one  as  is 
the  prevalence  of  a  habit  for  the  other.  Not 
only  is  it  necessary  that  he  should  take  it 
into  account  in  order  to  make  a  viable  body, 
but  again  he  may  take  advantage  of  it  in 
order  to  make  a  body  energetic  or  attractive. 
The  more  his  mind  has  become  impressed 
with  its  form,  diversities,  dependencies  and 
usage,  the  more  masterly  is  his  eloquent  use 
of  it  in  his  work ;  and,  if  you  closely  study 
the  figures  of  the  great  century,  you  will  per- 
ceive that  from  the  heel  to  the  head,  from 
the  curve  of  the  arched  foot  to  the  lines  on 
the  face  there  is  no  dimension,  no  form,  no 
tone  of  flesh  which  does  not  contribute 
toward  bringing  out  into  relief  the  charactei 
which  the  artist  desired  to  express. 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

Here  do  new  elements  present  themselves, 
or  rather  the  same  elements  are  presented 
from  another  point  of  view.  The  lines  which 
trace  the  bodily  contour,  or  which,  in  this 
contour,  mark  depressions  and  projections,  have 
a  value  in  themselves ;  and,  according  as  they 
are  straight,  curved,  sinuous,  broken  or  irreg- 
ular, they  produce  upon  us  different  effects. 
The  same  thing  occurs  with  the  masses  com- 
posing the  body;  their  proportions  have  also 
in  themselves  a  significative  power;  accord- 
ing to  the  various  relationships  of  size  which 
unite  the  head  to  the  trunk,  the  trunk  to 
the  members,  the  members  to  each  other,  we 
experience  various  impressions.  There  is  an 
architecture  of  the  body,  and  to  the  organic 
connections  which  tie  together  its  living  parts 
we  must  join  the  mathematical  connections 
which  determine  the  geometrical  masses  and 
its  abstract  contour.  In  this  respect  we  may 
compare  it  to  a  column;  a  certain  proportion 
of  diameter  and  of  height  makes  it  Ionic  or 
Doric,  elegant  or  truncated.  In  a  similar  man- 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  337 

ner  a  certain  proportion  between  the  size  of 
the  head  and  the  size  of  the  whole  form  makes 
the  body  Florentine  or  Roman.  The  shaft  of 

4u&4^JLM^tf 

the  column  cannot  be  grafter  than  its  thick- 
ness multiplied  a  certain  number  of  times  by 
itself;  in  a  similar  manner  the  whole  form  of 
the  body  must  attain  to  and  not  surpass  a  cer- 
tain multiple  of  which  the  head  is  the  unit. 
All  parts  of  the  body  have  thus  their  mathe- 
matical measurement ;  without  being  rigorously 
limited  to  this  they  approximate  to  it,  and  the 
different  degrees  of  this  approximation  express 
a  different  character.  The  artist  accordingly 
here  comes  in  possession  of  a  new  resource ; 
he  can  select  small  heads  and  elongated  bodies 
like  Michael  Angelo,  simple  and  monumental 
lines  like  Fra  Bartolomeo,  undulating  contours 
and  varied  inflexions  like  Correggio.  Balanced 
or  disordered  groups,  upright  or  oblique  atti- 
tudes, different  planes  and  different  compart- 
ments in  his  picture  will  furnish  him  with  dif- 
ferent symmetries.  A  fresco  or  a  picture  is  a 
square,  a  rectangle,  a  circle,  an  archway,  in 


338  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

brief,  a  panel  of  space  in  which  the  human 
assemblage  forms  an  edifice.  Consider  in  the 
engravings  of  the  "Martyrdom  of  St.  Sebas- 
tian" by  Baccio  Bandinelli,  or  the  "School  of 
Athens"  by  Raphael,  and  you  will  appreciate 
this  order  of  beauty  which  the  Greeks  by  a 
word  full  of  music  called  eurythmy.  Look 
at  the  same  subject  treated  by  two  painters, 
the  "  Antiope  "  by  Titian  and  by  Correggio,  and 
you  will  appreciate  the  different  effects  of  the 
geometry  of  lines.  It  is  a  new  force  which 
it  is  necessary  to  turn  in  the  same  sense  as 
the  others  and  which,  neglected  or  badly  di- 
rected, prevents  character  from  having  its  full 
expression. 

I  come  now  to  the  last  element  which  is  a 
capital  one,  that  of  color.  By  themselves,  and 
outside  of  their  imitative  purposes,  colors,  like 
lines,  have  a  sense  of  their  own.  A  gamut  of 
colors  which  portray  no  real  object  may,  like  an 
arabesque  of  lines  imitating  no  natural  object, 
be  either  rich  or  meager,  elegant  or  dull.  The 
impression  they  make  on  us  varies  according  tc 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  339 

their  combination ;  their  combination  therefore 
has  an  expression.  A  picture  is  a  colored  sur- 
face in  which  the  different  tones  and  the  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  light  are  distributed  with  a 
certain  selection  ;  here  you  see  its  inward  life ;  it 
is  for  them  an  ulterior  property;  it  does  not 
prevent  their  primitive  property  from  having  all 
its  importance  and  all  its  rights,  that  these  tones 
and  these  degrees  of  light  should  be  shaped 
into  figures,  draperies  and  architectural  designs. 
The  special  value  of  color  is  therefore  enormous, 
and  the  direction  which  painters  take  in  this 
respect  determines  the  rest  of  their  work.  But 
in  this  element  there  are  many  other  elements ;  at 
first,  the  general  degree  of  luminousness  or  of  ob- 
scurity; Guido  paints  white,  silver-gray,  slaty- 
gray  and  pale  blue,  and  all  in  full  light.  Caravag- 
gio  paints  black  and  an  intense,  earthy,  charred 
brown,  and  all  in  opaque  shadow.  Again,  the  op- 
position of  lights  and  darks  in  the  same  picture 
is  more  or  less  powerful,  and  more  or  less  pro- 
portioned. You  are  familiar  with  the  delicate 
gradation  which,  in  Da  Vinci,  causes  the  form  to 


340  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

emerge  insensibly  out  of  the  shadow ;  with  the 
exquisite  gradation  which,  in  Correggio,  brings 
the  strongest  light  out  of  the  universal  light; 
with  the  violent  emergence  in  Bibera  of  a  clear 
tone  suddenly  bursting  forth  out  of  the  lugu- 
brious blackness ;  with  the  humid  and  yellow 
atmosphere  through  which  Rembrandt  darts  a 
ray  of  sunshine,  or  infiltrates  it  with  some  wan- 
dering gleam. — Finally,  besides  their  degree  of 
luminousness,  tones,  according  as  they  are  or 
are  not  complementary  to  each  other,*  have  their 
discords  and  their  harmonies ;  they  are  mutually 
attracted  or  repelled  ;  orange,  violet,  red,  green, 
and  all  others,  simple  or  commingled,  thus  form 
through  their  proximity,  like  musical  notes 
through  their  succession,  a  full  and  strong,  or 
rugged  and  rude,  or  soft  and  sweet  harmony. 
Contemplate  in  the  "Esther"  of  Veronese  in 
the  Louvre  the  charming  succession  of  yellows 
which,  vaguely  pale,  darkened,  silvered,  *ed- 
dened,  tinged  with  green  and  amethyst,  and 

*  Chevreuil,  "  Treatise  on  the  Contrasts  of  Colors.'' 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  341 

always  tempered  and  allied  together,  melt  into 
each  other  from  the  pale  jonquil  to  the  dead 
leaf  and  the  burning  topaz ;  or  in  the  "  Holy 
Family  "  of  Giorgone,  the  powerful  reds  which 
from  the  almost  black  purple  of  the  drapery  go 
on  diversifying  and  illuminating  each  other, 
spotted  with  ochre  on  the  solid  flesh,  palpitating 
and  trembling  in  the  interstices  of  the  fingers, 
spreading  out  bronzed  upon  a  manly  breast,  and, 
impregnated  by  turns  with  light  and  shadow, 
falling  at  last  upon  the  face  of  a  young  girl  in 
an  emanation  of  sunset  glow.  In  these  you  will 
comprehend  the  expressive  power  of  such  an 
element.  It  is  to  figures  what  the  accompani- 
ment is  to  vocal  music ;  and  better  still,  for  it  is 
sometimes  the  song  to  which  the  figures  are 
simply  the  accompaniment;  from  an  accessory 
it  gets  to  be  a  principal.  But  let  its  value  be  ac- 
cessory, principal  or  simply  equal  to  that  of 
the  others,  it  is  no  less  evident  that  it  is  a  dis- 
tinct force,  and  that  in  order  to  express  char- 
acter its  effect  must  harmonize  with  the  other 
effects. 


342  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN-  ART 


IV. 


According  to  this  principle  we  will  make  £ 
final  classification  of  the  works  of  painters.  All 
things  equal  in  other  respects,  we  see  that  they 
will  be  more  or  less  beautiful  according  as  the 
convergence  of  elects  in  them  is  more  or  less 

^,^^,1  *tt.it4m***""-vttff-'in~"''>  "*  **•*  »*»«»*»^»l«l***''-l>i"'«*H  t?v**i»ffy^«^,v^^ftv«V.-WA^S'»;^1-*'Si*"*t'<k'*-'(L»»-^*''i*'«/-* 

complete ;  and  this  rule,  applied  to  literary  his- 
tory, marking  the  successive  periods  of  a  lite- 
rary age,  gives  us  the  means,  if  we  know  how  to 
apply  them  to  the  history  of  painting,  of  de- 
fining the  successive  states  of  a  school  of  art. 

In  the  primitive  period  the  work  is  still  im- 
perfect. Art  is  inadequate,  and  the  ignorant 
artist  knows  not  how  to  make  all  the  effects  con- 
verge. He  handles  some  of  them,  often  very 
well  and  with  genius ;  but  he  has  no  suspicion 
of  the  others  ;  a  lack  of  experience  prevents  him 
from  seeing  them,  or  the  atmosphere  of  civiliza- 
tion in  which  he  lives  diverts  his  eyes  from 
them.  Such  is  the  state  of  art  during  the  two 


OH  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  343 

first  ages  of  Italian  painting.  In  spirit  and  in 
genius  Giotto  resembles  Raphael ;  he  had  the 
same  fertility,  the  same  facility,  the  same  origi- 
nality, the  same  beauty  of  invention, — his  senti- 
ment of  harmony  and  nobleness  was  not  less; 
but  the  language  was  not  formed  and  he  only 
stammered  while  the  other  spoke.  He  had  not 
studied  under  Perugino  and  in  Florence,  he  was 
not  familiar  with  antique  statues.  At  that  time 
the  first  glance  only  had  been  bestowed  on  the 
living  body  ;  ignorant  of  the  muscles,  people  did 
not  see  their  expressive  force;  they  would  not 
have  dared  to  comprehend  and  love  the  fine 
human  animal ;  it  smacked  too  much  of  pagan- 
ism ;  the  sway  of  theology  and  of  mysticism  was 
too  powerful.  Hieratic  and  symbolic  painting 
thus  continues  a  century  and  a  half  without 
making  use  of  its  principal  element. — The  second 
age  commences,  and  the  goldsmith-anatomists, 
becoming  painters,  model  for  the  first  time  in 
their  pictures  and  in  their  frescoes  solid  bodies 
and  well-jointed  members.  But  they  are  stall 
deficient  in  other  parts  of  their  art.  They  are 


344  ON  THE  WEAL  IN  ART. 

unconscious  of  that  architecture  of  lines  and 
masses  which,  seeking  for  ideal  curves  and  pro- 
portions, transforms  the  real  body  into  a  beau- 
tiful body ;  Yerochio,  Pollaiolo,  Castagno,  pro- 
duce angular  and  ungraceful  figures,  all  knotted 
with  muscles,  and  which,  according  to  a  saying 
of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  "  resemble  bags  of  nuts." 
They  are  unconscious  of  variety  of  action  and 
physiognomy,  and,  in  Perugino,  Era  Filippo  and 
Ghirlandaijo,  and  in  the  ancient  frescoes  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel,  the  figures,  passive,  cold  or 
ranged  in  monotonous  files,  seem  to  await  their 
existence  in  the  final  inspiration  which  never 
comes.  They  are  blind  to  the  richness  or  de- 
licacy of  color,  the  personages  of  Signorelli, 
Credi  and  Botticelli  being  dull,  dry  and  detached 
in  sharp  relief  against  a  background  without  an 
atmosphere.  It  is  necessarv_that_^tc^llo jda_ 
Messina  should  introduce  into  Italvjminting  in 
oil  in  order  that  the  glow  and  combination  of 
melting,  lustrous  tones  should  make  warm  blood 
flow  in  their  veins.  It  is  necessary  that  Leo- 

.—.„+  ••-" """"i  "ITIMH.    —  V 

nardo  da  Vinci  should  discover  the  insensible 


OA   THE  WEAL  IN  ART.  345 

gradations  of  light  in  order  that  aerial  perspec- 
tive should  cause  the  retreating  fulness  of  their 
forms  to  emerge,  and  envelop  their  contours 
in  the  mild  transparency  of  chiaroscuro.  It  is 
only  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  that  all 
the  elements  of  art,  liberated  one  by  one,  can 
unite  their  forces  in  the  hand  of  a  master  in 
order  to  manifest  through  their  concord  the 
character  which  he  conceived. 

On  the  other  hand  when,  in  the  second  half 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  painting  declines  the 
temporary  convergence  which  had  produced 
masterpieces  becomes  relaxed  and  can  no  longer 
be  re-established.  But  recently  it  did  not  exist 
because  the  artist  was  not  suificiently  learned ; 
now  it  fails  because  he  is  too  pedantic.  In  vain 
do  the  Caracci  study  with  indefatigable  patience 
and  draw  from  all  schools  the  most  varied  and 
most  fecund  processes.  It  is  just  this  combina- 
tion of  discordant  effects  which  reduces  their 
work  to  an  inferior  position.  Their  sentiment  is 
too  weak  to  produce  harmony ;  they  take  from 
one  and  then  from  another  and  are  rained  in 


346  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  AET. 

borrowing.  Tlieir  knowledge  injures  them  in  re- 
uniting in  the  same  effects  that  which  cannot  be 
united.  The  "Cephalus"  of  Annibal  Caracci, 
in  the  Farnese  palace,  has  the  muscles  of  one  of 
Michael  Angelo's  wrestlers,  a  stoutness  and  re- 
dundancy of  flesh  borrowed  from  the  Venetians,  a 
smile  and  cheeks  taken  from  Correggio — remind- 
ing us  disagreeably  of  a  graceful  and  fat  athlete. 
The  "  St.  Sebastian"  of  Guido  in  the  Louvre  is 
the  torso  of  an  antique  Antinous,  bathed  in  a 
light  which,  in  its  glow,  reminds  one  of  that  of 
Correggio,  and  in  its  bluish  tone  of  that  of 
Prudhon — disagreeably  suggesting  a  sentimental 
and  amiable  ephebos  of  the  palestrum.  Every- 
where, throughout  this  decadence,  the  expression 
of  the  head  contradicts  that  of  the  body ;  you 
Bee  the  airs  of  saints,  devotees,  worldly  women, 
sigisbees,  grisettes,  youthful  pages,  and  domes- 
tics on  vigorous  forms  and  bodies  full  of  muscu-  ' 
lar  commotion ;  the  whole  together  combines 
gods  and  saints,  who  are  insipid  declaimers  • 
nymphs  and  Madonnas  who  are  drawing-room 
goddesses,  and,  oftener  still,  certain  personage* 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  347 

who,  floating  between  two  characters,  fulfil  the 
requirements  of  neither  and  are  nothing.  Simi- 
lar disparities  for  a  long  time  arrested  Flemish 
painting  in  the  midst  of  its  career,  when  with 
Michael  Coxcie,  Martin  Hemskirk,  Francis  Floris, 
Henry  Goltzius,  and  John  Rottenhamer,  it  was 
desirous  of  becoming  Italian.  In  order  that 
Flemish  art  should  resume  its  enthusiasm  and 
attain  its  end  it  was  necessary  that  a  new  afflux 
of  national  inspiration  should  overshadow  foreign 
importations  and  give  a  new  impulse  to  the 
instincts  of  the  race.  Then,  with  Rubens  and 
his  contemporaries,  the  original  idea  of  the  en- 
semUe  reappeared;  the  elements  of  art  which 
were  grouped  only  to  be  in  contradiction  were 

i         niTH  -  -  •PT— *—~ -~-^-— •— — •— .— -«— •— . ~JaaL. 

linked  together  in  order  to  become  complete. 

— I---T..-I.-JIMI     i   r-T.  .1  .Vnrin     I .  T  L    I  I  I  -~rtrmMBMOTH»l    I       'I'll  I      •  r   I 

and  viable  works  replaced  abortions. 

Between  periods  of  decline  and  infantile 
periods  is  placed  ordinarily  a  period  of  efflo- 
rescence. But  whether  we  meet  it,  as  it  gene- 
tally  happens,  at  the  centre  of  the  whole  period, 
or  in  the  slight  interval  which  separates  igno- 
rance from  false  taste ;  or  whether  we  find  it,  as 


348  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

it  sometimes  happens,  when  it  concerns  one  man 
or  an  isolated  work,  in  an  eccentric  position, 
always  is  the  masterpiece  due  to  a  universal  con- 
vergence of  effects.  In  support  of  this  truth  the 
history  of  Italian  painting  furnishes  us  with  the 
most  varied  and  most  decisive  examples.  It  ia 
in  pursuit  of  this  unity  that  all  the  art  of  the 
masters  is  applied,  and  the  delicacy  of  perception 
which  constitutes  their  genius  is  wholly  revealed 
by  the  opposition  of  their  processes  as  well  as 
by  the  coherence  of  their  conception.  You  have 
remarked  in  Da  Vinci  a  supreme  and  almost 
feminine  elegance  of  visage,  an  indefinable  smile, 
a  profound  expression  of  feature,  the  melancholy 
superiority  or  exquisite  refinement  of  the  soul, 
and  rare  or  original  attitudes  in  unison  with 
waving  suppleness  of  contour,  with  the  mys- 
terious charm  of  chiaroscuro,  with  vague  depths 
of  increasing  shadow,  with  insensible  gradations 
of  form,  with  the  strange  beauty  of  vaporous 
perspectives.  You  have  remarked  with  the  Ve- 
netians an  ample  and  rich  light,  a  joyous  and 
healthy  consonance  of  related  or  antagonistic 


ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  349 

tones,  a  sensual  lustre  of  color  in  unison  with 
splendor  of  decoration,  with  the  freedom  and 
magnificence  of  life,  with  the  bold  energy  or  with 
the  patrician  nobleness  of  head,  with  the  volup- 
tuous charm  of  ample  and  living  flesh,  with  the 
easy  and  animated  action  of  groups,  with  the 
universal  expansion  of  happiness.  In  a  fresco  by 
Raphael  sobriety  of  color  suits  the  sculptural 
force  and  solidity  of  the  figures,  the  calm  archi- 
tecture of  the  grouping  and  composition,  the 
seriousness  and  simplicity  of  the  heads,  the  tem- 
perate action  of  the  attitudes  and  the  serenity 
and  moral  elevation  of  the  expression.  A  pic- 
ture by  Correggio  is  a  sort  of  Alcinous'  enchanted 
garden  where  the  bewildering  seduction  of  light 
wedded  to  light,  the  capricious  and  caressing 
grace  of  waving  or  broken  lines,  the  glittering 
whiteness  and  soft  rotundity  of  feminine  forms, 
piquant  irregularity  of  faces,  the  vivacity,  the 
tenderness,  the  abandonment  of  expression  and 
of  action  combine  to  form  an  exquisite  and  deli- 
cate dream  of  felicity,  such  as  a  fairy's  magic 
and  a  woman's  affection  would  prepare  for  hei 


850  ON  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

lover.  The  entire  work  springs  from  one  prin- 
cipal root ;  a  primitive  and  predominant  sensation 
pushes  on  and  ramifies  to  infinity  the  complex 
growth  of  effects;  with  Fra  Angelico  it  is  the 
vision  of  supernatural  illumination  and  a  mystic 
conception  of  celestial  bliss  ;  with  Rembrandt  it 
is  the  idea  of  an  expiring  light  in  a  humid  at- 
mosphere and  the  mournful  sentiment  of  poig- 
nant reality.  You  will  find  an  idea  of  the  same 
order  determining  and  harmonizing  lines  of 
different  species,  the  selection  of  types,  the 
arrangement  of  groups,  the  expressions,  the  mo- 
tions, the  color  in  Rubens  and  in  Ruysdael,  in 
Poussin  and  Lesueur,  in  Prudhon  and  in  Dela- 
croix. Criticism  labors  in  vain,  it  cannot  define 
all  the  results  that  flow  from  it ;  they  are  innu- 
merable and  too  profound;  life  is  the  same  in 
works  of  genius  and  in  those  of  nature ;  it  pene- 
trates down  to  the  infinitely  small ;  no  analysis 
can  reach  the  end  of  it.  But  in  these  as  well  as 
in  those  observation  verifies  the  essential  con- 
cordances, the  reciprocal  dependencies,  the  finaj 
direction  and  the  harmonies  of  the  ensemMc  but 


ON  THE  WEAL  IN  ART.  361 

wLoso  entire  detail  it  does  not  succeed  in  dis- 
tinguishing. 

V. 

We  can  now,  gentlemen,  take  in  the  whole 
of  art  in  a  single  glance,  and  comprehend  the 
principle  which  assigns  to  each  work  its  rank 
on  the  scale.  "We  have  established,  accord- 
ing to  our  preceding  studies,  that  a  work 
of  art  is  a  system  of  parts,  at  one  time  drawn 
from  every  detail  as  it  happens  in  architecture 
and  in  music,  at  another  reproduced  according 
to  some  real  object  as  it  happens  in  literature, 
sculpture  and  painting;  and  we  are  reminded 
that  the  purpose  of  art  is  to  manifest  by  this 
ensemble  some  notable  character.  We  have 
hence  concluded  that  the  merit  of  the  work  is 
greater  proportionately  as  this  character  be- 
comes more  notable  and  more  predominant. 
We  have  distinguished  in  the  notable  char- 
acter two  points  of  view,  according  as  it  is 
more  important,  that  is  to  say  more  stable 
and  more  elementary;  and  according  as  it  u 


352  0^  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 

more  beneficent,  that  is  say,  more  capable  oi 
contributing  to  the  preservation  and  to  the 
development  of  the  individual  and  of  the  group 
in  which  he  is  comprehended.  We  have  seen 
that  to  these  two  points  of  view,  according  to 
which  we  may  estimate  the  value  of  characters, 
correspond  two  scales  by  which  we  may  value 
works  of  art.  We  have  remarked  that  these 
two  points  of  view  are  combined  in  a  single 
one,  and  that,  in  short,  the  important  or  benefi- 
cent character  is  never  but  one  force,  measured 
at  one  time  by  its  effects  on  others  and,  at 
another,  by  its  effects  on  itself;  whence  it  fol- 
lows that  character  having  two  kinds  of  power 
has  two  kinds  of  value.  We  have  then  sought 
how,  in  a  work  of  art,  it  can  be  more  clearly 
manifested  than  in  nature;  and  we  have  seen 
that  it  takes  a  more  powerful  relief  when  the 
artist,  employing  all  the  elements  of  his  work, 
makes  all  their  effects  converge.  Thus  is  es- 
tablished before  us  a  third  scale ;  and  we  have 
seen  that  works  of  art  are  so  much  more  beau- 
tiful as  character  is  imprinted  and  expressed 


02f  THE  IDEAL  IN  ART.  353 

in  them  with  a  more  universally  predominant 
ascendency.  The  masterpiece  is  that  in  which 
the  greatest  force  receives  the  greatest  develop- 
ment. In  the  language  of  the  painter,  the  m* 
perior  work  is  that  in  which  the  character 
possessing  the  greatest  possible  value  in  nature 
receives  from  art  all  the  increase  in  value  that 


is  possible.  Let  me  express  the  same  matter  to 
you  in  a  less  technical  manner.  The  Greeks,  our 
masters,  teach  us  here  the  theory  of  art  as  well 
as  everything  else.  Note  the  successive  trans- 
formations which  have  been  gradually  erected 
in  their  temples,  a  Jupiter  mansuetus,  a  Venus 
rtf  Milo,  a  Diana,  huntress,  a  Juno  like  that 
of  the  Villa  Ludovisi,  the  Fates  of  the  Par- 
thenon, and  all  those  perfect  images  whose 
mutilated  fragments  still  suffice  to  show  us 
the  exaggerations  and  the  inadequacies  of  our 
own  art.  The  three  steps  of  their  conception 
are  precisely  the  three  steps  which  have  led 
us  to  our  doctrine.  At  the  commencement 
their  divinities  are  only  the  elementary  and 
profound  forces  of  the  universe :  the  maternal 


354:  ON  THE  IDEAL  IX  ART. 

Earth,  subterranean  Titans,  rustling  streams 
the  rain-giving  Jupiter,  the  Hercules  sun.  A 
little  later  these  same  gods  liberate  their  hu- 
manity buried  in  the  brute  energies  of  nature, 
and  the  martial  Pallas,  the  chaste  Artemis, 
the  liberator  Apollo,  the  Hercules  vanquisher 
of  monsters,  all  the  beneficent  powers  form 
the  noble  choir  of  complete  figures  which 
Homer's  poems  are  to  place  on  thrones  of 
gold.  Ages  pass  away  before  they  descend 
to  the  earth;  it  is  necessary  that  lines  and 
proportions,  a  long  time  manipulated,  should 
reveal  their  resources  and  be  able  to  main- 
tain the  burden  of  the  divine  idea  which  they 
are  to  bear.  Finally,  man's  fingers  imprint 
on  bronze  and  on  marble  the  immortal  form ; 
the  primitive  conception,  at  first  elaborated 
in  the  mysteries  of  the  temples,  then  trans- 
formed by  the  visions  of  the  bard,  attains 
its  completion  under  the  hand  of  the  sculptor, 


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